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"M 



HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 



HOW DIPLOMATS 
MAKE WAR 



BY 

FRANCIS NEILSON 

Member of Parliament, January, 1910-Deccmber, 1915. 




The whole theory of the universe is directed to one '^v 
single individual — namely, to You. 

— Walt Whitman. 



NEW YORK 

B. W. HUEBSCH 

MCMXVI 






Copyright, 1915, by 
B. W. HUEBSCH 






First edition, November, 1915 

Second edition, May, 1916 
Third printing, January, 1918 



PRINTED IN U, S. A. 






r 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

Now that it is necessary to publish a second edition 
of this book, and as I have resigned my seat in Parlia- 
ment, I wish to take this opportunity of making the 
name of the author public. 

I am grateful to my friend, Mr. Albert Jay Nock, 
for his kindness in editing the work and fathering the 
book upon its first appearance. 

Francis Neilson. 

New York, April 17th, 19 16. 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 

PAGE 
1815 I 

Waterloo — After 1815 — Long period of unrest — Na- 
tional rights and individual rights — Unpatriotic critics 
— "After the Kaiser is crushed" — New values — Litera- 
ture and Jingoes — Britain and her vvarraongers — Might 
and Right — The interests of the people — What the na- 
tions are fighting for — The power that makes wars — 
The god of battles — The diplomatic machine — The 
work of diplomacy. 

CHAPTER n 
"Scraps of Paper" 15 

The Treaties of 1831 and 1839 — Holland and Belgium 
— Palmerston and Talleyrand — Treaty-making and the 
balance of power — Lord Granville and the Crimea — 
Sevastopol — After the Treaty of Paris — Wars from 1837 
to 1850 — Sir Robert Peel and armaments — The Duke of 
Wellington and France — After 1854 — Disraeli and 
Gladstone — The panic of i860 — Cobden and the utterly 
futile theory of secrecy — The rise of Bismarck — The in- 
fluence of Lassalle — George Brandes on Lassalle and Bis- 
marck — Might and Right — Poland 1862 — Prussia and 
Russia — Letter from King of the Belgians to Queen Vic- 
toria — Fitzmaurice on the diplomacy concerning the par- 
tition of Poland — Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark — 
Britain's relation then to France — The diplomatic squab- 
bles of the Continent — "Scraps of Paper" — Queen Vic- 
toria works for peace — Letters to Lord Granville — Dis- 
raeli's motion in the House — John Bright and the balance 
of power — The people and treaties — The condition of 
Britain, 1864. 

xi 



xll CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

1870 39 

Succession to the Spanish throne — Bismarck and Moltke 

— The Ems telegram — Editor Bismarck — British neu- 
trality — The Queen's advice — Belgium in 1870 — The 
schemes of Bismarck and Napoleon III — Morley on the 
British attitude — The Treaties of 1870 — Gladstone to 
John Bright — Diplomatic unrest — The neutral league — 
The Foreign Office then and now — Thiers and Prussia — 
The military party and the political party in Prussia — 
Peace negotiations — Alsace and Lorraine — Gladstone's 
fears — Britain free from Continental entanglements in 
1870 — Lord Granville and neutrality — Britain's posi- 
tion in 1914 — Secret understandings — Foreign friend- 
ships — Neutrality of Belgium — Foreign policy and viola- 
tion of the Treaty of 1839 — The provisions in Treaties 
of 1870 — Britain's action now not comparable with that 
of 1870 — War first, law after — Russia and Black Sea 

— Essential principle of the law of nations — Interna- 
tional law — The casus belli — Belgium's preparations — 
The moral value of treaties — Diplomacy and territory — 
Palmerston's letter to Clarendon, 1857 — Lord Gran- 
ville's difficulties — The condition of Britain in 1884. 

CHAPTER IV 
Friendships 66 

Germany and colonies — Bismarck's policy — Fitz- 
maurice and the Luxembourg quarrel — Odo Russell on 
Bismarck and British foreign policy — Bismarck's letter — 
Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone — Resolution in the House 
of Commons on embarking in war without the knowledge 
and consent of Parliament — Naval expenditure, 1887 — 
Russia and France — Toulon and Kronstadt — The rise in 
armaments — Germany before and after the Boer War — 
Forcing the pace — Germany versus France and Russia — 
Morocco — Secret articles — Von Bulow on relations of 
Britain and Germany — M. Delcasse — The Kaiser's visit 
to Tangiers — The press campaign — Baron d'Estour- 
nelles de Constant on the Anglo-French Agreement — 



CONTENTS xili 

PAGE 

Germany ignored — Lord Lansdowne on war — Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman — Mr. Balfour's statements in 1905 
— Lord Rosebery on violent polemics — Sir Edward Grey 
and alliances — Undesirable entanglements — Mr. Cham- 
berlain and Germany — Continuity of foreign policy — 
Mr. Asquith on caretakers — Lord Rosebery on the An- 
glo-French Agreement — The new Government — Mr. 
Asquith and the Kaiser at the Guildhall — Lord Cro- 
mer's startling information. 

CHAPTER V 
Enemies / . 91 

Nietzsche and Germany — Britain after the Boer war — 
The Tariff Reform campaign — The press campaign 
against Germany — The Schleswig-Holstein invasion 
rumours and M. Delcasse — The armament ring — M. de 
Pressense on M. Delcasse — The interview in Le Gau- 
lois — Mr. Bryce and Mr. Morley on the dangers of the 
press campaign — The yellow press — Lord Roberts and 
the Expeditionary Force — Lord Halsbury — Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman and the Hague Conference — The 
march of events — Scaremongers — Mr. Churchill's 
speech at Swansea — Germany before and after the out- 
break of hostilities. 

CHAPTER VI 

Panicmongers . .Ill 

The Franco-German Declaration — The people and 
diplomatic traffickings — Forces against democracy — 
The panic of 1909 — The Government's case — The Ger- 
man Government's naval declaration to Britain — The 
Jingo storm — Mr. MuUiner — Mr. Asquith on German 
expansion — Mr. Balfour's estimates of German naval 
strength — 'Sir Edward Grey on armaments — The Gov- 
ernment bow before the storm — The budget of 1909 — 
Lord Rosebery and Armageddon — The General Election 
of 1910 — Mr. Churchill on the methods of his political 
opponents — The British strength in ships 1904 and 1910 



xlv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

— Mr. Balfour's speech at Hanley — The Jingo press 
campaign increases in violence — Mr. Asquith's remon- 
strance — Dreadnaughts and pre-dreadnaughts. 

CHAPTER VII 
Insurance 132 

The policy of European naval expansion — Secret for- 
eign policy — Pacifists and militarists — The Govern- 
ment's blunders of 1909 — The German Fleet Law — The 
disquieting rumours of 1908 — British naval expansion — 
The first dreadnaught — The Anglo-French Agreement 
and its effect on German estimates — Arming against 
Germany — The work of the British and French naval 
and military experts — The Anglo- Russian Agreement — 
"Under which King?" — The Kaiser-Tweedmouth corre- 
spondence — The Kaiser complains — Fury of the Jingo 
press — Old Liberal watchwords abandoned — German 
feeling against Britain — The policy of isolating Germany 

— Comparison of navies, 1908 — The figures for new con- 
struction, 1909 to 1914 — Big business — What intelligent 
Germans must have thought of British foreign and naval 
policy — Figures of Triple Entente and Triple Alliance 
for new construction, 1914, compared — Ministers misled 
in 1909 — Sir Edward Grey and German naval pro- 
gramme — Lord Roberts and Lord Haldane — The Pan- 
ther's visit to Agadir after the French expedition to Fez. 

CHAPTER VIII 
Apostles of Peace 154 

Office — Mr. Churchill at the Admiralty — The new 
public policy — The supremacy of Entente Powers — Mr. 
Dillon on Morocco — The publication of the secret Articles 

— Sir Edward Grey on foreign friendships — Mr. Bonar 
Law on Germany — Lord Morley on Germany's ambi- 
tion — Lord Rosebery on foreign policy — Lord Haldane's 
visit to Berlin — Mr. Asquith on the crisis of 1911-^ The 
German Chancellor and the British Government's mission 
to Berlin — "Strategy" and foreign policy — Mr. Church- 
ill's declaration — The "naval holiday" — Bernhardi 



CONTENTS XV 

PAGE 

quoted in the Commons — Germany isolated — The naval 
position in the Mediterranean — The attitude of the 
masses — Mr. Bonar Law's warning — The conscription- 
ists — Lord Roberts' speech at Manchester — Thucydides 

— Lord Percy's startling statement — The disposition of the 
British and French fleets in 1912 — Belgian preparations 

— The position of Belgium. 

CHAPTER IX 
" Not INT THE Public Interest " 182 

Secrecy and heredity — Awkward questions — Foreign 
Affaira — Debate on the Army — Secret alliance with 
France — The Foreign Secretary questioned again^ — 
Naval policy not for the public — Mr. Swift MacNeill on 
secrecy in foreign affairs — Questions about Fez ^ The 
Comite du Maroc — British "interests" in Morocco — The 
Agadir crisis — Secret, agreements — Ministers at vari- 
ance — The basis of Government — Spinoza. 

CHAPTER X 
The Power to War 201 

The debate on the Expeditionary Force — Mr. Amery's 
remarkable speech — Sir Reginald Pole-Carew on the 
War Office secret — The Nowvelle Revue — The entente 
and naval policy — Lord Hugh Cecil questions Mr. As- 
quith on the secret understanding — Major-General Sir 
Ivor Herbert on a Continental Alliance — More awk- 
ward questions to Ministers — The naval estimates of 1913 

— Mr. Lee and Lord Charles Beresford on the naval 
policy in the Mediterranean — Contradictions — Lord Hal- 
dane on the Entente Powers' naval policy — The "naval 
holiday" again — Expenditure on navies for 1913 — 
The burden on Britain — The Foreign Secretary's power 

— Questions in 1914 on secret understandings. 

CHAPTER XI 
The Work of Diplomatists 222 

Britain in 1914 — Condition of Germany — The inter- 
nal affairs of France — Italy's position before the war — 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 
The crisis in Austria — Russia — The White Paper — 
When the House of Commons heard of the crisis — Des- 
patch-making — What the House was not told — Sir Ed- 
ward Grey in the toils — Despatch No. 17 — Russian 
mobilization — German diplomacy — Orders to the fleet — 
The attitude of Russia after the fleet sailed — Diplomatic 
chess — M. Sazonof — Depression in Berlin — Telegrams 
of the Czar and Kaiser — "All would depend on Russia" 

— Events in Petersburg — The freest assembly in the 
world — The Commons a week before the declaration of 
war. 

CHAPTER XII 
A Game of Chess 261 

The Foreign Secretary's statement on July 30th — Des- 
patch No. 85 — The "infamous bargain" — Belgian fore- 
sight — What the German Foreign Office knew — Mr. 
Asquith makes a statement — No questions until Monday 

— What the Commons did not know — German pressure 
on Austria — The Foreign Secretary warns Prince Lich- 
nowsky — Strange methods of diplomatists — Britain and 
peace — M. Cambon reminds Sir Edward Grey of the 
understanding — Black Friday — Kriegsgefahr proclaimed 

— Sir Edward Grey's struggle — Dilatory methods of 
the Cabinet — Neutrality of Belgium — Rejoicing in 
Petersburg — The Belgian diplomatic correspondence — 
The plans of General Staffs — "Technically impossible" 

— Austria concedes Russian demands — Despatch No. 123 

— The position of the Foreign Secretary — Grave news 
from Berlin — Saturday, August ist — Cabinet consent 
to give France naval support — Sunday Cabinet meetings 

— Feverish military activity. 

CHAPTER XIII 
The Foreign Secretary's Statement .... 296 

The House of Commons — The speech — The con- 
fession — Cryptic speeches of 1905 made plain — Sir 
Edward Grey's letter to M. Cambon — The French fleet 
and the Mediterranean — Strange discrepancies in Franco- 



CONTENTS xvii 

PAGE 

British documents — What the Foreign Secretary did not 
tell the House — Secrecy to the bitter end — Striving for 
Peace — Bound to France — What France and Belgium 
were doing meanwhile — More strange discrepancies — 
Germans invade Luxembourg and Belgium — Co-opera- 
tion — More explanations — Despatch No. 123 again — 
What Jingoes toiled for — Who began it? — Signposts 

— Secret diplomacy. 

CHAPTER XIV 
Recrimination 317 

Anatole France — Friendly Societies — Basil Williams 
on Anglo-German relations — Mr. Lloyd George on Ger- 
man alarm — The year 1912 again — Mr. Asquith's rev- 
elations at Cardiff — Hoodwinking the people — Friendly 
speeches and unfriendly affairs — Mr. Churchill at Dun- 
dee — Lord Welby — More light on the Treaty of 1839 — 
Mr. Lloyd George and Belgian neutrality — Military un- 
derstanding with Belgium — Lord Palmerston on the 
Treaty — The Times editorial — Official Tory position 
in the '80s — " Diplomaticus " — The Standard gives ad- 
vice. 

CHAPTER XV 
On Brotherly Terms 341 

Mr. Lloyd George at the City Temple — The faith of 
the Puritan Fathers — Jesus — " Resist not evil " — Wars — 
Justice and right — The long ago — Greece and China — 
The god of battles — Luther on war — After the Treaty 
of Peace is signed — Lessons that might be learned — 
Christianity and Humanists — The new hope — Browning 

— The fight against poverty — Atrocities — Religions — 
The masses and Jesus — Mr. Blatchford and the future — 
What is justice? — Mr. Asquith and Socialism — Indi- 
vidual justice — Cromwell — Milton. 

CHAPTER XVI 
Aftermath 366 

Back to the causes of the war — Danger of forgetting 
what brought it about — Nothing so cheap as human life 



xvlii CONTENTS 

— War and poverty — Disarmament not probable — Rus- 
sia as dominant power — Suggested changes in Foreign 
Office system — Parliament must have complete control 

— Fixed period for Parliament — The problems of arma- 
ments and war — Recruiting — Equal opportunity the 
remedy — What the war means — Christianity has not 
done its work — Hope of the soldiers. 

Appendix 377 



HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE 
WAR 

CHAPTER I 

1815 

" What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net 
purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for 
example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dum- 
drudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by 
certain ' Natural Enemies ' of the French, there are suc- 
cessively selected, during the French war, say thirty able- 
bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled ^ 
and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, 
fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, 
so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and 
the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. 
Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are 
selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public 
charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south 
of Spain ; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same 
spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, 
from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending: till at 
length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual 
juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with 
a gun in his hand. Straightway the word * Fire ! ' is 
given: and they blow the souls out of one another; and in 
the place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty 
dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. 
Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the 

I 



2 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest 
strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, un- 
consciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between 
them. How then? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen 
out: and, instead of shooting one another, had the cunning 
to make these poor blockheads shoot. — Alas, so it is in 
Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; still as of old, 
* what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the 
piper!'" 

— Carlyle, Sartor Resartus. 

Within a year of the centenary of Waterloo, 
Europe is again engaged in a conflict, in which three 
Powers are united in awful bonds, to overthrow an- 
other military tyrant. Another hundred years of 
treaties, alliances, understandings, secret engage- 
ments, and ententes, leave Europe now in the throes 
of Gargantuan battles, the like of which Napoleon 
never in his wildest dreams imagined possible. A 
century ago, the vast majority of the millions of 
Europe believed it was absolutely necessary for na- 
tions to spend every energy in subduing the French 
Emperor, because he was a danger to the peace of 
the world and a menace to democracy. Twenty 
years of carnage, over fields extending from Mos- 
cow to Corunna, were spent In crushing the might 
of the " hero-monster " who rose at Toulon to be 
master of Europe. When at last the aim of the 
allies was accomplished, and the " man of blood " 
was safely isolated on St. Helena, Europe knew 
little peace, nor did Britain rest from the labours of 
the arsenal. The nations of Europe did not disband 
their armies. They did not beat their swords into 
ploughshares, nor did they decide that battleships 
would be required no more. 



WHAT THE PEOPLE GET 3 

All wars we are told are fought In the interest 
of the people. It is their land, their nation, their 
homes, that are at stake. It is their pride, their 
honour, their patriotism, that are called upon by re- 
cruiting statesmen when a diplomatic squabble is to 
be settled by force of arms. The same appeals were 
broadly made onp hundred years ago that are made 
to-day. But what do the people, the workers, get 
in return for all the vast sacrifices they make? The 
economic, industrial, and financial condition of Eng- 
land, for over a generation after the Second Treaty 
of Paris, was not a whit less miserable than when 
her people suffered from the ravages of Napoleonic 
wars. National distress and widespread disaffection 
brought agitation and revolt. Riots in the large 
towns, and rick-burnings in the agricultural districts, 
were every-day occurrences. For seventeen years 
artisans and labourers suffered terrible privations. 
Parliament gave little or no heed to the lamentations 
of the people who had supplied the armies for 
Wellington and had made a thousand sacrifices to 
crush the militarism of Napoleon. After the down- 
fall of military France, diplomacy secured for a time 
the privileges of some small nations, but Parliament 
did not secure the rights of those men who had di- 
rectly and indirectly helped to conquer the man who, 
no matter what he thought of national rights, had 
a better conception of individual rights than British 
statesmen of the time. Parliament was indeed more 
concerned In those days In transporting to Van Die- 
men's Land men who had the courage to ask the 
nation's representatives to observe the first duty of 
a Parliament: to grant economic, political, and re- 
ligious rights to all men. National honour, pride. 



4 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

and patriotism did not run to that. The rights of in- 
dividuals could wait, but the privileges of nations 
were urgent affairs. 

The aftermath was enough to satisfy the most 
war-loving patriot. Over £530,000,000 were added 
to the National debt. The honour and glory of an 
all-conquering nation filled the empty stomachs of 
the people, who knew they were at last safe from 
the atrocities of the Corslcan terror. Carping crit- 
ics, ignorant, no doubt, of Britain's superb achieve- 
ments on land and sea, said that corn at eighty 
shillings a quarter was a poor return for all the peo- 
ple had done to save Europe from the mailed fist 
of Napoleon. But, it was ever thus. There have 
been unpatriotic critics in all ages. It may be pre- 
sumed that after Agincourt some stay-at-home 
grumbled about the net result of Henry's campaigns. 
In extenuation it might be said that a short-sighted 
people may not expect to see the political significance 
of the work of kings and diplomatists. Patience, 
a virtue carried to excess by the people of warring 
nations, is required to an almost unwarrantable de- 
gree if one generation is to appreciate the full diplo- 
matic glory the next one will enjoy. Still, peace is 
not consummated when war on foreign fields is trans- 
ferred to the villages and towns of one's own coun- 
try. And even when all the military nations of the 
earth stand at ease, — not only indulge in an armed 
peace but disarm altogether, — the people will suffer 
without cessation all the horrors of economic and in- 
dustrial war. 

But this war is different from any other that has 
been waged. We are told it is a " holy " war; some 
say it is a "spiritual" war; there seems to be no 



PROMISES AND FULFILMENT 5 

doubt in the minds of most journalists that It is a 
" just " war. The end of it is to be a democratic 
millennium. No one is to be left out of the apotheosis 
of the nations. Russia will be the freest land on 
earth; Pole and Jew, Finn and Slav, will all unite 
in a liberty which, in the press, already touches the 
confines of licence. No more Balkan troubles, no 
more aggrandizement, no more envy, greed, or bully- 
ing. Disarmament is only one of the blessings which 
will come to the race of man, after the Kaiser is shut 
up on the Island of Juan Fernandez, or some other 
pacific spot. 

It is a pity Nietzsche died before he completed 
his Transvaluation of All Values. When the bu- 
reaucrats of Prussia and Russia regard the inter- 
ests of all Germans and Russians as a first charge 
on the departments, then we shall not know what to 
do with many volumes that now occupy so much 
space on our book-shelves. New values will be nec- 
essary when the churches cry, " We have no work 
to do." And when war is known no more the woes 
of the armament ring will call for a system of new 
values beyond the inventive powers of the sanest 
superman that ever lived. But what will the heathen 
think of it all? A real Christendom in the place 
of a sham Christendom will revolutionize everything 
that mortal man can think of. 

Unfortunately history, that rude awakener from 
such dreams, jeers at all the fine prognostications of 
the journalists and statesmen of to-day, and makes us 
pause while we ponder the question: "Will men, 
much less Governments, change so quickly?" The 
noble aspirations of men writing under the strain 
of a great war are not always warranted unshrink- 



6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

able. Written in the heat of wartime they suffer 
when the chill of peace sets in. Still, a touch of 
Pharisaism is a virtue at a time like this, for it makes 
us forget our vices. 

Now that the public is reading the works of au- 
thors whose names it never heard of before, it is diffi- 
cult for a pohtician who does not see eye to eye 
with the present Government to say anything pro- 
found. The simple middle-class household that was 
content last spring with the Daily Mail, or the Daily 
News, at breakfast, will now take nothing less than 
copious extracts from Treitschke or Sybel. Since 
Mr. Archer discovered Thus Spake Zarathustra, no 
afternoon tea is complete without a discussion on 
A Genealogy of Morals. Sociology, Carson, and 
suffragettes are no longer subjects of interest now 
that Bernhardi and Beyerlein are household authors. 
No war was ever the means of discovering so much 
literature as this. Everybody is so learned that a 
person of limited knowledge must perforce sit mute 
in a club, in a restaurant, in a railway train, or in a 
bus, while some stranger who has read the Times 
expounds the philosophy of some German whose 
name he cannot pronounce. 

But Germany has had no monopoly of Treitschkes 
and Bernhardis, not any more than Britain has had a 
monopoly of Cremers and Carnegies. The senti- 
ments of Bernhardi were expressed in many a home 
in Britain long before Germany and the Next War 
was published. The notion that wars are necessary 
for the development of the race is not new; and years 
before Kipling tickled the souls of British Jingoes, 
a large section of the people of Britain worshipped 
the god of battles. The wife of an archbishop bap- 



MEMORIES 7 

tized a dreadnaught not so long ago. During the 
Boer War, when Britain was busy attending to the 
" rights " of small nations in South Africa, ministers 
of the gospel gave the Prince of Peace the cold 
shoulder. The most popular pictures on the walls 
of church schools were copies of Maclise's Battle of 
Waterloo, and Battle of Trafalgar. Church armies 
and juvenile regiments of various kinds have been 
fostered by the clergy; and "leaders of thought," 
afld soldiers, and war office organizers, have joined 
societies founded for the propaganda of peace, — so 
that the useful doctrine, " the best way to keep the 
peace is to be prepared for war," should not be lost 
sight of altogether. Scarcely one society for the 
propaganda of useful knowledge has escaped its 
Jingo. The Psychical Society had a prominent 
member in the man who led the Jingoes in 1909, 
when the cry was, " We want eight, and we won't 
wait." This Jingo made an attempt to show his 
sympathy with Bergson when in the debate in the 
House of Commons, on August 3rd, 1914, he said 
the speeches of the pacifists, who had the courage to 
express their opinions, were " the very dregs and lees 
of the debate." Perhaps he was conscious" that 
" We trail behind us, unawares, the whole of our 
past; but our memory pours into the present only 
the odd recollection or two that in some way com- 
plete our present situation." It is most strange what 
a revolution British thought has passed through since 
the beginning of August, 19 14. No one seems to 
remember what the nation suffered from 1908 to the 
end of July, 19 14. No one remembers that the 
contempt of the militarists of Britain for the advo- 
cates of peace at home, was just as deep as that of 



8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Bernhardi for the pacifists of Germany. It seems 
to be forgotten that the section of the British press 
given over to the crusade of hatred and greed, 
pushed their campaigns as unscrupulously as did any 
Krupp-owned journal in Germany. Forgotten are 
the armament firms that welcomed half-pay officers to 
their boards of directors. Forgotten, too, are those 
leaders of religious bodies who did not hesitate to 
associate themselves with the business of warfare, 
and its dividends. 

But all these methods of stimulating interest in 
the destruction of life and property were, we are 
told, not to be held parallel with similar designs in 
Germany. Not by any means. Even comparison is 
not to be tolerated for a moment. For the Germans 
have a war-lord who is absolute; a melodramatic vil- 
lain, jealous of Britain's might. Besides, our war- 
like preparations were not made for the purpose 
of aggrandizement; our objects were pacific, our in- 
tentions laudable. Defence, not defiance, was our 
motto. Nothing could be clearer. We had as 
much territory as any one but a Kaiser could wish 
for, and all we asked of other nations was to let 
us alone in the enjoyment of our vast empire. 
Britain had only one desire, and that was to keep 
what she had got. Germany, on the other hand, 
had a strictly limited area for expansion, because she 
came rather late into the game of pushing afield. 
Her ambitions were behind the times. Still, though 
it was unfortunate for her colonial policy, it was 
but natural, all the same, that she should want to 
get from us what we took from others. Neither 
Machiavelli nor Plato understood the British posi- 
tion. " Might is Right," — up to a point. When 



MAXIMS FOR MONARCHS 9 

an empire Is established nowadays nothing can be 
right that questions Its fundamental notion, that God 
sanctioned Its making. " Might Is Right," ceased to 
have any virtue as a doctrine, once the British Em- 
pire was formed. Plato's notion that Justice is the 
end for which a state exists. Is classical; in modern 
days, no such Utopian idea can exist. 

When the Kaiser was studying the law of nations, 
Bismarck should have taught him those two useful 
maxims (which every monarch should In future 
memorize) ; " First come, first served," and " Pos- 
session is nine points of the law." It is true Na- 
poleon did not always let those useful precepts guide 
him; but it must be remembered that a century has 
passed since his methods of laying the basis of an 
empire upset so many Europeans. Besides, Na- 
poleon was a mere amateur at making war, and wag- 
ing war. His Government never voted £52,000,- 
000 in a single year for naval purposes. In these 
days a boy scout could tell him things about ex.- 
plosives and submarines that would make his ^hair 
stand on end; so far has science carried us onward 
and progress left the victor of Jena behlpfd. [ Per- 
haps the writers of books on Napoleon do hot know 
how harmful their works are in giving raise, notionis 
or what can be accomplished by studymg strategy 
and empire-makmg; the monarchs and generals that 
nave been led astray m thLS .respect are legion. 
Even so, it is not to be interred that tnis war would 
not have taken place if the Kai&er, had not taken 
to reading books on ]<f^^o]eo^.Jht^,^^^ 
Germany may, howeyer^ i^pmj^timp^ jConsoIe himself 
with the thought;, * t ji^t, B'rit^if|' 'pijie ' hur^^r e(i' yfMM? 
said of Napoleon what she now says or tne Kaiser, 



10 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

and that Napoleon, long dead, has somehow lived 
it all down. 

Nevertheless, our political leaders and newspaper 
editors tell us we are fighting in the interest of the 
people. That is what the Kaiser is telling the Ger- 
man. The Czar is telling the same story to the Rus- 
sian. And the French Government no doubt as- 
sures the disciples of Sorel that the carnage is for 
the benefit of the people. It is a great time for 
democracy, — surely never so many statesmen and 
diplomatists talked so affectionately of it before. 
One editor told us that the Triple Entente is no alli- 
ance formed for the purpose of keeping their peo- 
ples in subjection. Rather a nasty slap at the Mon- 
archal League ! — still, it is just as well we should 
know the truth about the Triple Entente. Another 
editor, eager to set his readers right as to why we 
are fighting, said, " Austria and Germany must be 
thrashed because the principles of democracy must 
be maintained by Britain, whose duty it has always 
been to keep open the road of progress." All seem 
to be agreed the principles of democracy are at 
stake. No country thinks of putting these pHnci- 
ples into practice, but somehow they seem to be 
worth fighting for. And the fight might cost twice 
as much as was spent on beating Napoleon, ten times 
as many lives might be sacrificed as the nations lost 
during the whole of Napoleon's campaigns, and one 
hundred times as many wounded and crippled, and 
then in the end; the people find themselves econom- 
ically, industrially, and financially, worse off than 
they were in 1830; no matter, the Kaiser must be 
crushed, for he is a menace to peace and a danger 



A CENTURY AGO ii 

to the democracies of Europe. One hundred years 
ago, the London News told Its readers that: 

" The situation of this country at the successful close of 
a long war is singular, and worthy of observation. It is a 
fact that peace, instead of having brought us security, re- 
trenchment, relief hqm burthens, or extended commerce, to 
enable us to bear them, has left us all the expenses of war, 
without gaining to us the friendship of the very Powers for 
whom we undertook it. Of all the countries, that one 
against which we fought has come out of the contest with 
the least harm ; and that which set all the rest in motion has 
suffered in the highest degree." 

That was the way wars were conducted in the days 
of Palmerston and Canning; and no one can say the 
men of 1 8 14 were 'prentice hands at diplomacy or 
war. 

There Is, however, one thing certain about this 
war; and that is, it cannot go on for ever. All par- 
ticular wars have an end; but there has so far been 
no end to the power that malces wars. When the 
might of Britain in 18 15 put an end to the military 
achievements of the " monster," who poor English 
villagers believed made a daily meal of boiled babies 
with brain sauce, It did not alter one tittle of the 
real dangers to peace. Kings, and courts, and 
diplomatists flourished just as strongly in the nine- 
teenth century as they did In the eighteenth. The 
god of battles was still worshipped by huge con- 
gregations; and the god was busy enough finding 
new fields for military operations years before Vic- 
toria was crowned. His activities roamed over 
enormous areas: there were wars in Burma, Man- 



12 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Chester, Algiers; the Triple Entente destroyed the 
Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino ; there were 
revolutions in Spain, Portugal, a second revolution 
in France, and Belgium revolted from the Nether- 
lands; the kingdom of Poland was abolished, and all 
that remained of its territory was swallowed up by 
Russia. In Britain there were riots, plots to mur- 
der the King's Ministers; and Parliament was busy 
for a number of years passing legislation which re- 
stricted the freedom of the people. In 1 832, the vic- 
tor of Waterloo was obliged to barricade his house 
against the fury of a London mob. Seventeen years 
after his triumph over Napoleon, when he saved 
Europe, and showered blessings upon the democra- 
cies extending from the Urals to Bantry Bay, It was 
ungenerous, to say the least, that Londoners, of all 
citizens, should be guilty of inflicting such indigni- 
ties on the Iron Duke, merely because he was op- 
posed to a Reform Bill. 

The diplomatic machine, stronger by far than any 
military organization, did its work night and day 
In the Chancelleries of Europe, no matter who was 
Foreign Minister. Castlereagh, Canning, or Gode- 
rich, the figure-head could do little to change the 
fixed methods of the permanent officials. Canning 
might be more liberal-minded than Castlereagh, but 
Canning could not affect the policies of all the em- 
bassies, nor inculcate radical Ideas In all the officials 
at the Foreign Oflfice. The machine was against 
change, for the whole system of parasitism had Its 
roots firmly embedded In diplomacy. It was a so- 
cial growth which extended Its privileges to one class. 
/ It was beyond the efforts of any Foreign Minister 
\ to uproot the Upas tree of traditional diplomacy; 
\ 



A LICENSED CAMORRA 13 

the Minister was here to-day and gone to-morrow; 
diplomacy remained. 

There is only one way to bring about a change. 
Only the people, the people of the leading nations, 
acting in concert, can perform that formidable task. 
The people of England have made great efforts to 
bring about a change in education, in the franchise, ^s..^^ 
in taxation, and in many other things, but they have 7 
never attacked the diplomatic machine. The reason p 
is because the people of England and of Europe have / // 
not yet connected diplomacy with the horrors of war. • '} 
Diplomacy carries on its work in secret; it is re- \ 
moved from the notice of the general public. More- I 
over, an utterly false idea has crept into the minds 1 
of people that the term diplomacy is synonymous 1 
with peace. When a too curious person at a polit- 
ical meeting has put a question on foreign affairs, 
consternation has struck the audience. How should 
any one be so mad as to question the virtue of 
our diplomacy? Besides, foreign policy is some- 
thing too complicated for the understanding of any 
one living in a house assessed at less than £100. 
Thus the machinations of diplomats seldom reach 
the mind of the vast majority of the electors. Se- 
crecy being essential to the existence of the Foreign 
Office, it is not surprising that the public takes so lit- 
tle interest in its work. Even in an assembly reputed 
so free as the British House of Commons, Its mem- 
bers, when they question the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, are often silenced by the reply, that " it 
would not be to the public interest to give the In- , 
formation." Secrecy encircles a Foreign Secretary \ 
with mysterious walls. Flis work, like the mole's, 
is subterranean. This is not always his fault; the 



\' 



14 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

best Foreign Secretary must be a victim of the sys- 
tem, and what he does must be accepted by an elec- 
torate, — ignorant in these affairs, — as labours per- 
formed in the pubhc interest. 

It is a pity so many do not know all the won- 
derful schemes carried out by a vigilant Foreign Of- 
fice for their individual well-being. How few know 
that there is a net-work of agents all over the world, 
watching and waiting for opportunities to add an- 
other sandy acre to the area of the empire; frus- 
trating the attempts of alien agents to take that acre 
from us; making friendships to preserve the balance 
of power in Uganda or Tibet; allotting territory in 
Africa and Asia, so that the natives will not quar- 
rel among themselves for more land than is good 
for them. Think of the value of the work of these 
agents, helping concessionaires to stir the lazy na- 
tives into labours only known In Christian countries ! 
It is a shame the electors cannot picture these agents, 
carrying the torch of Liberty in one hand, and the 
bandage from the eyes of Justice In the other; un- 
dertaking all the irksome business of painting red 
dots on the map of the world, for the glory and the 
preservation of the British Empire, — when they are 
not engaged in countries where dreams of coloniza- 
tion are governed by the size of the nation's navy. 
It is so good for the British people to have a de- 
partment occupied from one year's end to another 
in seeing that the slum-dwellers of our great cities, 
towns, and villages, have a place in the sun; and 
that the missionaries we do not need at home shall 
not lose their lives abroad. The public learns slowly ; 
and nothing is heeded so little as the lesson of the 
marvellous " utihties " of diplomacy. 



CHAPTER II 



*' SCRAPS OF PAPER 



Alas, the country! how shall tongue or pen 

Bewail her now wwcountry gentlemen? 

The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, 

The first to make a malady of peace. 

For what were all these country patriots born? 

To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn? 

But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall, 

Kings, conquerors, and markets most of all. 

And must ye fall with every ear of grain? 

Why would you trouble Buonaparte's reign? 

He was your great Triptolemus ; his vices 

Destroy'd but realms, and still maintain'd your prices; 

He amplified to every lord's content 

The grand agrarian alchymy hight rent. 

Why did you chain him on yon isle so lone? 

The man was worth much more upon his throne. 

True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt, 

But what of that ? the Gaul may bear the guilt. 

— Byron, The Age of Bronze. 

How many of the journalists writing articles on the 
present trouble know the history of the " scrap of 
paper " that was the casus belli? The Encyclo- 
padia Britannica is not so popular now as the works 
of Professor Treltschke, " who had brought his- 
torical teaching into contact with real life, and had 
created a pubhc opinion more powerful than the 
laws" (to quote Lord Acton), but, if the bible of 

15 



1 6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

sciolists is not the fashion, then a glimpse at Eve- 
lyn Ashley's Life of Lord Pahnerston will yield 
some information as to motives of the Powers in 
drawing up the Treaties of 1831 and 1839. 

Ashley describes the squabbles of the Dutch and 
the Belgians, and defends Palmerston for tearing 
one of the main provisions from the Treaty of 
Vienna, which united Holland and Belgium. When 
Napoleon fell, we desired to bring these countries 
together, to fortify parts of them, and relieve our- 
selves from the anxiety of having to watch a coast 
which had been hostile and extremely dangerous dur- 
ing the years of Napoleon's might. There was no 
question of the rights of Belgians in those days; 
our interest In the affair was one of convenience — 
how to keep Belgium from falling into the hands 
of the French. We were, however, between the 
devil and the deep sea. Ashley says: "To side 
with Holland would have been contrary to all the 
traditions which Palmerston had inherited from 
Canning. To acquiesce in French aggrandizement 
would have been little short of a national disgrace." 
Opinion in Britain was divided; there was no whole- 
hearted outburst of national Indignation at the action 
of Holland. Palmerston's methods were the subject 
of some fierce attacks. The Foreign Minister had 
no easy road to travel at any time during the negotia- 
tions. Talleyrand was as keen to look after the in- 
terests of France as Palmerston was to safeguard the 
coasts of Britain. The tangle and the wrangle of 
the settlement was of the order of low comedy, and 
any one under the Impression that the separation of 
Belgium from Holland was accomplished by the five 
Powers with one mind and solemn behaviour, should 



SCRAPS OF PAPER 17 

spend an hour reading the utterly discreditable pro- 
ceedings. They all snarled and quarrelled like a 
pack of fishwives. Neither Dutch nor Belgians were 
pleased when the settlement was made; indeed the 
King of Holland very soon defied the Allies, and 
showed his contempt for the " scrap of paper," 
which the Powers were in no haste to sign. After 
the Treaty of 1831 was consummated by the signa- 
ture of Russia, the last power to sign, on May 4th, 
1832, it was not long before the neutral states, Hol- 
land and Belgium, had another row, this time about 
Luxembourg and Limbourg. Finally, the matter 
was adjusted, and a new " scrap of paper " was 
signed April 19th, 1839, at London. Treaty-mak- 
ing was not the solemn affair the journalists of 
to-day imagine ; and the makers of treaties were not 
always actuated by the purest motives. Their ac- 
tions and methods were often enough comparable 
only to those of a certain class of horse-dealer, whose 
bargains satisfy neither the seller nor the buyer. 

Anyway, the balance of power was secured, and 
there seemed no reason why any European should 
ever think of going to war again. For decades the 
term " balance of power " meant nothing at all to 
millions of men who sweated their lives away — 
when they did not give themselves as food for can- 
non — to help pay the bill for maintaining the bal- 
ance. It has always been a shifting question; for 
after sacrificing thousands of lives and spending mil- 
lions of pounds in attempts to preserve the balance, 
the result of battles has seldom left the balance of 
power where it was. Never was such a wobbly thing 
invented to inflict so much misery on mankind. 
And diplomatists, as a rule, have had a poor opinion 



'/ 



1 8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

of it. They have many times discovered, after a 
war, that little or nothing had been gained by all 
the fighting. Lord Granville, in 1887, wrote to the 
Duke of Argyll that his own belief was that the 
Crimean War was a great misfortune, and that either 
Palmerston or Aberdeen alone would have prevented 
it. Yet, no war was ever so popular. It is interesting 
to read Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice on that blunder. 
He said: 

" In order to find a sufficient explanation of the great 
decision for which Lord Granville had his share of respon- 
sibility we must look further. In the arrogant attitude of 
Russia since 18 15 towards Europe, to which she seemed 
hardly to belong, in the ever increasing insolence of that 
attitude since the accession of the Emperor Nicholas, in the 
existence of a threatening military autocracy rendered dou- 
bly odious by half-mystical claims, and in the translation of 
those claims into action against liberty not merely in Poland 
or Hungary but all over Europe, is to be found the explana- 
tion of the Crimean War. These things had produced an 
atmosphere of alarm and hatred out of which the lightning 
was certain sooner or later to leap. No quarrel about the 
Holy Places, no dispute about the Christian subjects of the 
Porte, could possibly have dragged an unwilling Prime Min- 
ister to associate the history of his Government with a war 
against a country to which he was, to say the least, not per- 
sonally hostile. It was the belief which animated the people 
that western civilization was threatened in its essential con- 
ceptions of individual and political liberty which forced him 
on, and sent the armies and fleets of Great Britain, France, 
and Sardinia, with no adequate cause of immediate quarrel 
to the shores of the Black Sea and the Baltic. It is no exag- 
geration to say that if the Crimean War had never been 
fought the two subsequent decades of the century would not 
have seen the formation of a United Italy and a United 
Germany and all the consequences." 



NET RESULTS 19 

Here is a lesson worth a moment's consideration. 
It points a moral; two, indeed. The Crimean War 
was popular; but years after Lord Granville believed 
it to have been a great misfortune. Russia threat- 
ened western civilization; Russia was a military au- 
tocracy with half-mystical claims; she was also a 
danger to individual and political liberty. If the 
war had not been fought there would have been no 
United Germany, with all its power; that military 
autocracy with more than half-mystical claims might 
never have been strong enough to fight the French 
in 1870. So, we smash one Power which threatens 
individual and political liberty so that one far worse y^ 
may some day arm with the intention of smashing us. ^ 
But Holy Places must be preserved, and there is no''-- 
better way than using gunpowder and bayonets; just 
to show a Christian nation's religious feelings are 
not to be outraged with impunity. The Crimean 
War cost Great Britain some 25,000 lives, and fifty 
millions in money; and the balance of power and the \ 
position of neutrals received many rude shocks dur- «^ 
ing the progress of that disastrous campaign. The 
treaty made in Paris in 1856 was only fifteen years" 
old when it was cancelled. Anyway, Russia was 
properly thrashed, and, for a few years, the citizens 
of the western democracies slept soundly, their 
dreams never haunted by the nightmare of a Slav 
autocracy threatening their individual and political 
liberties. 

Not all diplomatists have been as frank as Lord 
Granville. In his letters he gives us a glimpse be- 
hind the scenes : 

" The siege of Sevastopol has hitherto been a failure. 



20 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

We have generals whom we do not trust, and whom we do 
not know how to replace. We have an Ambassador at 
Constantinople, an able man, a cat whom no one cares to 
bell, whom some think a principal cause of the war, others 
the cause of some of the calamities which have attended the 
conduct of the war; and whom we know to have thwarted 
or neglected many of the objects of his Government. The 
French generals seem worse than ours; the troops before 
Sevastopol inferior to ours, if not to the Russians." 

That was written to the Duke of Argyll during the 
progress of the war. It would be interesting to 
know what the Government at the time told the coun- 
try about the business. Another passage from the 
same letter contains a sentiment worth noting: 

" In the meanwhile the deaths of brave men and distin- 
guished officers, falling in affairs which have absolutely no 
results, press upon us the duty of considering whether it is 
absolutely necessary to continue the war." 

Lord Granville might have gone further and said, 
" No matter what the result, nothing of any practical 
value to mankind will be gained." He might also 
have said, " In a few years the Russian and the Turk 
will be at each other's throats, and even Britain, to 
say nothing of France, will stand aside and let them 
tear each other to pieces." 

The Treaty of Paris gave the god of battles little 
rest. The period from Victoria's accession to the 
date of the Repeal of the Corn Laws was replete 
with wars; and scores of peoples, scattered nearly all 
over the earth, engaged the attention of the martial 
deity. A complete list of the wars and revolutions 
of that period would occupy too much space; but to 
mention some of the localities, — to indicate how 



PEEL ON ARMAMENTS 21 

widespread the area was over which the god had 
to watch the strife, — may serve a useful purpose. 
There was a revolution in Canada; Chartist dis- 
turbances at home; war in Afghanistan; tumults in 
Vienna, Berlin, and Rome: there were wars in India, 
Burma, Egypt, Turkey, and China; to say nothing 
of the risings in Ireland and South Wales. France, 
of course, had a revolution. 1848 was a very busy 
year for the god of battles. Nietzsche was not to 
blame for any of those wars. Indeed, the funda- 
mental idea of Thus Spake Zarathiistra did not come 
to him until 188 1. So that work was not account- 
able even for the Franco-German War of 1870. 
And no British editor will assert that Treitschke 
was a popular author before he went to Leipzig. 
What then could have been the cause of all the dis- 
turbances? It must have been either Goethe or Jean 
Paul, or, mayhap, Tieck. There were men in 
Britain who might have said it was our fault for 
spreading bibles about the globe, and letting the un- 
sophisticated read the 144th Psalm. Anyway, 
treaties and diplomatists were not successful in so 
much as keeping the peace of Burma, let alone the 
peace of Europe. 

It must not be inferred, however, that every man 
in Britain during the first two decades of Victoria's 
reign was war-mad. There were some men who 
spoke strongly against armaments. For instance, 
Sir Robert Peel, In the House of Commons, in 1841, 
said: 

" Is not the time come when the powerful countries of 
Europe should reduce their armaments which they have so 
sedulously raised ? Is not the time come when they should 



22 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

be prepared to declare that there is no use in such overgrown 
establishments? The true interest of Europe is to come to 
some common accord, so as to enable every country to reduce 
^.-those military armaments, which belong to a state of war 
"'"^^ rather than of peace. I do wish that the councils of every 
country (or the public voice and mind, if the council did 
not) would willingly propagate such a doctrine." 

'^ A brave statement that, in the days when Pal- 
merston and Thiers influenced the military establish- 
ments of Britain and France; before the Entente 
Cordiale was taken as a step towards the goal of 
European peace. Our western ally of to-day was 
then in a position to fill the mind of the Duke of 
Wellington with awe. He wrote, " excepting im- 
mediately under the fire of Dover Castle, there is not 
a spot on the coast, from the North Foreland to 
Sel^ey Bill, on which infantry might not be thrown 
on shore at any time of tide with any wind and in 
any weather." Seven years after the Duke's awful 
warning, Britain found France fighting side by side 
with her In the Crimea. Diplomacy brings together 
strange bedfellows. 

After Russia was soundly thrashed by the Allies, 
^peace did not even bring a reduction of military 

-^ expenditure. In 1857 we sent military expedi- 
tions to China and Persia, at a time when Brit- 
ish methods of teaching Hindoo princes how to gov- 
ern were causing grave unrest in India. Then Dis- 
raeli was moved to say, " When a time of peace con- 
sists of preparations for war, of fitting out expedi- 
tions, of sending fleets to different quarters of the 
globe, then I am obliged to consider whether the war 
taxation is not required for circumstances and objects 

y^ far different from those which a time of peace justi- 



THE BOGEY OF i860 23 

fies and requires." Many of the leading men then 
in the House of Commons believed that the best 
way to keep the peace was to curtail expenditure on 
armaments. Whatever may be said of the futility 
of that notion, it cannot now be claimed, by those who 
support the contrary view (namely, that the best way 
to keep the peace is to prepare for war), that large 
armies and powerful navies are factors which make 
for international harmony. There were " Little 
Navy " men in those days. Gladstone, for instance, 
resolutely opposed Palmerston's scheme to expend 
£11,000,000 on the defence of arsenals and dock- 
yards. That was in the summer of i860, when 
Herbert was at the War Office, and scared so many 
patriots by saying he was convinced that a great 
calamity was impending in the shape of war with 
France. Three years earlier the French Emperor 
had offered to facilitate the passage of troops 
through France to reinforce our regiments in India. 
The Cabinet, the House, and the country, were, 
nevertheless, in a state of panic, and Palmerston car- 
ried the day. Millions were spent fortifying 
our coasts against a French invasion, and the tax- 
payers, no doubt, felt secure behind the fortifications 
that saved them from Herbert's impending calamity. 
But to their sorrow, the taxpayers learned, in a very 
few years, that their millions had been thrown away. 
At that time of panic Gladstone said: 

" We have no adequate idea of the predisposing power 
which an immense series of measures of preparations for war 
on our part has in actually begetting war. They familiarize 
ideas which lose their horrors, they light an inward flame 
of excitement of which, when it is habitually fed, we lose 
the consciousness." 



24 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

The change from wooden to iron vessels two years 
after the panic revealed the madness of the wasters 
who had squandered the millions in i860. From 
panic to negotiation within one year was quick shift- 
ing for any nation; still, Disraeli, in 1861, suggested 
a compact should be made with the French Govern- 
ment to limit naval expenditure. He said : 

*' What is the use of diplomacy, what is the use of Gov- 
ernments, what is the use of cordial understandings, if such 
things can take place? " 

Cobden at that time used all his intelligence and 
\ strength to make the Government and the people see 
the danger of the nations piling up enormous arma- 
ments. His view of the question is worth remem- 
bering : 

" A remedy for the evil can only be found in a more 
frank understanding between the two Governments. If 
they will discard the old and utterly futile theory of secrecy 
^-^ — a theory on which an individual manufacturer or merchant 
no longer founds his hopes of successful competition with a 
foreign rival — they may be^ enabled, by the timely exchange 
of explanations and assurances, to prevent what ought to be 
restricted to mere experimental trials from growing into 
formidable preparations for war. But the greatest evil con- 
nected with these rival armaments is that they destroy the 
strongest motives for peace. When two great neighbour- 
ing nations find themselves subjected to a war expenditure, 
without the compensation of its usual excitements and 
honours, the danger to be apprehended is that if an accident 
should occur to inflame their hostile passions — and we know 
how certain these accidents are at intervals to arise — their 
latent sense of suffering and injury may reconcile them to a 
rupture, as the only eventual escape from an otherwise per- 
petual war taxation in a time of peace." 



FERDINAND LASSALLE 25 

Well might Disraeli ask what is the use of diplo- i^ 
macy. But " discard the old and utterly futile theory 
of secrecy," and what becomes of nine-tenths of the 
work of the Foreign Office? Besides, parasites take 
good care of their -departments, and as they have 
benefited from the system, they consider it their duty 
to pass it on with all its privileges unimpaired to 
future parasites, as if it were a vested interest. Pal- 
merston would have none of Cobden's Utopian pro- 
posals, — not he, — and straightway he set out to 
keep the country in a state of panic. 

Diplomatists kept the god of battles busy through 
the years extending from the Crimean War along to 
1864, the year before Palmerston passed away to 
that realm where the " jingo does not panic and "-^ 
bingo has no sale." Just about that period Prussia 
set to work to put her house in order. British states- 
men failed to detect new movements which would 
mean great things in European history, but Pal- 
merston was not the man to estimate the value of 
those plans and tendencies. And to-day, now that 
so many writers are looking to find the beginnings 
of this Germany we are warring against, few under- 
stand the influences that were at work about the year 
i860, to which the extraordinary changes which took 
place might very well be attributed. The rise of 
Bismarck cannot be accredited to the teachings of 
Sybel and Treitschke, as some people imagine. Nor 
were the German people stimulated by their works. 
It may, however, be safely suggested that the vast 
majority of the Germans of that time read more 
books and pamphlets of Ferdinand Lassalle than 
those of any other four or five authors. Treitschke 
was read then no more than Bergson is read in Eng- 



26 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

land now. The Germany we are trying to under- 
stand in this year 19 15, is the product of two men 
of extraordinary powers who met in the plastic time, 
and impressed their strong personalities on a people 
of great capacity. Ferdinand Lassalle and Bismarck 
were the men, and the Germany that is puzzling 
many newspaper historians owes no more to the lat- 
ter than it does to the former. George Brandes 
touches this idea in his work on Lassalle : 

" One event during the nineteenth century has provoked 
the greatest surprise and astonishment in Europe. Unsuc- 
cessful attempts at its explanation have been, and are still, 
offered by the different European nationalities. This event 
is the process by which the Germany of Hegel was trans- 
formed to the Germany of Bismarck. Some theorists speak 
as if the old German stock had suddenly died out, and a new 
race had sprung up without roots ; others, as if the old stock 
had been destroyed or ennobled by an infusion of Wendish- 
Slavonic blood. To some, modern Germany is enigmatic 
as the Iron Mask. The face of the philosopher and poet 
was the real countenance, and this has now been hidden by 
Prussian domination, as the mask concealed the identity of 
the unhappy prisoner. Others, again, regard the old and 
pleasant countenance of romance as the mask, hypocritically 
hiding the real features, which have now become visible. 
These views are alike injudicious, and are based in either 
case upon ignorance of the course of development which 
modern Germany has pursued. If this development is 
studied in literature, it will be seen how, step by step, the 
ideas, the methods of action, and the views of life pursued 
and entertained by the newer generation have developed or- 
ganically from those of the past age. The gulf which di- 
vides the Germany of Hegel from the Germany of Bismarck 
will gradually be filled before our eyes. The faces upon 
either side of this gulf will appear as related by similarity 
of feature; while certain interesting and strongly marked 



A FORGOTTEN FACTOR 27 

countenances which stand out boldly against the background 
of history will of themselves typify the process of transition 
and amalgamation which has fused the intellectual individ- 
ualities of two generations. Of these special features hardly 
any is more interesting or more clearly cut than the figure 
of Ferdinand Lassalle. ' He was born on April nth, 1825, 
and died of a wound received in a duel on August 21st, 1864. 
He was a distinguished pupil of Hegel, and was spoken of 
in his time as Bismarck's tutor, and not unreasonably; for 
even though he cannot be shown to have influenced Bismarck 
directly, yet, if we examine the points which decided both 
the foreign and domestic policy of the great statesman, we 
shall find that this policy precisely realized the programme 
propounded by the philosophical agitator." 

How any responsible student of the history of 
Germany can pretend to describe her growth during 
the middle third of the last century, without taking 
account of the influence and genius of Lassalle, Is in- 
comprehensible. The same confusion exists to-day 
In the minds of the critics of German policy that ex- 
isted over fifty years ago In the Fatherland, as to 
Lassalle's Interpretation of Might and Right. Then 
the common notion was that Lassalle put might in 
the place of right. When he said In his lecture in 
Berlin in 1862, " Constitutional questions are, there- 
fore, In the first Instance, not questions of right, but 
questions of might," he stated the case of every so- 
called civilized nation, not Germany only, but Britain, 
France, and Belgium. He said, " The actual consti- 
tution of a country has its existence only In the actual 
conditions of force which exist In the country." No 
Britisher should now deny that ugly truth. But Las- 
salle was not stating what should be ; he was present- 
ing the case as It then stood In Germany and in 
other nations. True, the press at the time inter- 



28 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

preted the lecture as a declaration that might was 
right. Lassalle in a pamphlet replied to the obvious 
misunderstanding, and said, " If I had created the 
world I should very probably have made an excep- 
tion at this point in favour of the wishes of the 
Volkszeitiing and of Count Schwerin, and have ar- 
ranged that right should precede might. Such an 
arrangement would be quite in harmony with my own 
ethical standpoint and desires. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, I have not been entrusted with the creation of 
the world, and must therefore decline any responsi- 
bility, any praise or blame, for the nature of existing 
arrangements." 

Certainly, the first law of every " civilized " na- 
tion is force. 

But we return to the immediate subject, however 
fascinating the digression may be to one whose only 
amusement in these terrible days is the nonsense bab- 
bled and scribbled by statesmen and journalists on 
German philosophers. The next exhibition of 
might preceding right was another utterly discredit- 
able affair for British diplomacy. It took place in 
Eastern Europe, concerning Poland. What half a 
century can do for European nations, in changing 
and shifting thrones and boundaries, cannot be bet- 
ter illustrated than by presenting a simple record of 
events since 1862. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice in 
his Life of Lord Granville, adorns the tale from 
which the public of to-day might draw many morals. 
Writing about the beginning of this century, Fitz- 
maurice said: 

" Poland was then, as it still is, the hinge on which Prus- 
sian foreign policy turns. Ever since the first partition to 
avoid a conflict with Russia has been the policy of the Prus- 



" RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS " 29 

sian Foreign Office and the inherited tradition of her Royal 
Family. The Minister whom William I had just called to 
his councils, already contemplating that he might shortly 
have to open a new and perilous chapter of German and 
European history, which might bring him into collision with 
Austria and France, was determined under no circumstances 
whatever to risk a struggle with Russia. He, on the con- 
trary, intended to obtain a solid guarantee of her future 
good-will, with an eye to coming events. To stand rigidly 
aloof from European intervention in the affairs of Poland 
was the obvious method to gain his end, especially as this 
policy would have the additional advantage of separating 
Russia from France should France join in the proposed in- 
tervention." 

Britain and France sympathized with the Polish 
Insurrectionists, but diplomatic Intervention without 
the support of Austria or Prussia seemed to Lord 
Granville an act of madness. The Queen was 
alarmed and feared a rupture with Russia. The 
King of the Belgians wrote to the Queen a letter 
which Is of great significance at present when Britain 
is spending millions and sacrificing thousands of lives 
In " upholding " the integrity and independence of 
Belgium. It seems Incredible that the King of a 
small, weak power could write In such terms of an 
ancient kingdom that had suffered more terribly from 
the aggression of great powers than any country in 
the world. And it should be remembered that Bel- 
gium then owed Its political existence to the Treaty 
of 1839. The King said: 

" About Poland the English Cabinet must be prudent. 
... It would be impossible for the Emperor Alexander to 
give up these provinces, which, one must say, are prosperous, 
and have been now Russian for a long period. Their ex- 



30 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

istence will be improved, as truly much has been already 
done in that way. But the Russians as a nation will never 
and can never submit to give them up. To carry on a war 
for that purpose, would for England be a fool's play. If a 
Poland, as the Garibaldians wish it could be restored, it 
would be in close alliance with France; and Prussia, par- 
ticularly between the French on the Rhine and a French 
province on the Vistula, could not exist. It would be com- 
pletely nullified. Austria would also get such a dangerous 
set of people near Hungary, that it would find itself in the 
same position. England has a vital interest, for its own 
security, that those two Powers should continue to maintain 
their existence. . . ." 

Poor Poland ! Not much sympathy then for your 
notions of independence. But what a strange thing 
is diplomacy ! After all, continuity of foreign policy 
is merely a party shibboleth, and ambassadorial la- 
bours are vain. Prussia and Austria were the bul- 
warks of British and Belgian foreign policy of that 
day, and France was the menace to the peace of 
Europe. The British Cabinet did not then go out 
of its way to do much for a small nationality, and 
it was content to give merely platonic advice to Rus- 
sia. FItzmaurlce said, " With the result that at the 
end of the diplomatic campaign Russia had become 
bound by ties of gratitude to Prussia for having re- 
fused to take part in It, while the previous good un- 
derstanding between France and Russia was shat- 
tered. The remnants of good feeling between 
France and England were also still further re- 
duced. . . . The net result was that both Great 
Britain and France were felt to have lost heavily in 
public estimation." 

Then followed all the squalid business of Schles- 



LAND-GRAB AND JINGO HOPES 31 

wig-Holsteln and Denmark. Any one deeply im- 
bued with the alleged gallantry of diplomatic Britain 
guarding the interests of small states and preserving 
" scraps of paper," might read with profit the history 
of our share in those transactions. In looking back 
it is amazing to see just where we stood in relation 
to France. Writing of the Frankfurt Congress, 
Lord Granville said to Lord Palmerston: 

" No doubt anything tending to German Unity would be 
disagreeable to France, 'but would not give France any just 
pretence for attacking Belgium or Prussia, and if unity was 
in any military sense accomplished, it would make French 
aggression towards the Rhine more difficult." 

There, in that Danish brawl, again the question of 
the integrity of a kingdom (which had been guar- 
anteed by the Powers in a treaty in 1852) nearly 
set Europe in a blaze. The Germans resented the 
actioh of the Powers and now sought an opportunity 
of adding to their area the two Elbe Duchies. The 
squabble gave all the diplomatists a grand chance of 
pushing ulterior affairs affecting their states. It was, 
indeed, an orgy in which the mildest game was " beg- 
gar my neighbour," and the most modest one " strip 
Jack naked." The Jingoes in England were elated 
at the prospect of a war with Germany. Palmerston 
had high hopes; the situation was one he gloried in. 
There is nothing like a " scrap of paper " for bring- 
ing nations at each other's throats, whether it be to 
keep the scrap whole or to tear it to shreds. The 
temperature of Britain was raised to fever heat at 
the force thrown by two great Powers on little Den- 
mark. Ashley says: " It was suggested that 
France and Great Britain should offer their media- 



32 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tion on the basis of the integrity of the Danish mon- 
archy and the engagements of 185 1-2; and that, if 
such mediation were refused by Austria and Prussia, 
England should despatch a squadron to Copenhagen, 
and France an army corps to the Rhenish frontier of 
Prussia." Palmerston talked big and did little. 
y^ He said: " If any violent attempt was made to 
-/ overthrow the rights and to Interfere with the in- 

dependence of Denmark, those who made the at- 
tempt would find in the result that It would not be 
Denmark alone with which they would have to con- 
tend." Ignorance of German feeling and ambition 
was just as dense then as It Is now, and the Ignorance 
was the cause of many silly misunderstandings. 
Apart from the national question of Denmark, some 
people said the Schleswig-Holstein affair arose be- 
cause commercial bills in the Duchies were drawn 
upon Hamburg and not upon Copenhagen ! A letter 
from the Queen to Lord Granville Is instructive as 
to the way monarchs in those days regarded " scraps 
of paper " : 

"The Emperor (French) and M. Drouyn de I'Huys say 
'We wish to maintain the treaty, but if the alternative is 
maintaining it or a conflagration in Europe, we prefer to 
modify or cancel it, rather than a conflagration.' . . . We 
have done too much, been too active, and done ourselves no 
good. We are, alas! detested in Germany." 

The Queen fought hard for peace against the 
leaders of the Opposition and some of her chief Min- 
isters. It was, however. Lord Granville whose wis- 
dom and tact ultimately saved the country from a 
disastrous war. In another letter the Queen said: 

" The only chance of preserving peace for Europe is by 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S IDEAS 33 

not assisting Denmark, who has brought this entirely upon 
herself, and who, the Queen believes, would now even resist 
fulfilling her promises! Denmark is after all of less vital 
importance than the peace of Europe, and it would be mad- 
ness to set the whole Continent on fire for the imaginary 
advantages of maintaining the integrity of Denmark. Lord 
Palmerston and the Emperor Nicholas are the cause of all 
the present trouble by framing that wretched Treaty of 
1852." 

What strange ideas Victoria had of treaties and 
people's rights. What would have happened had 
she been on the throne last year? She might have 
asked what on earth the people of this generation 
have to do with a treaty signed In 1839, and why 
the British nation should be committed to a European 
conflagration because their grandfather's Foreign 
Secretaries agreed to a diplomatic deal of which the 
people knew little and cared less. She might have 
said, " that Lord Palmerston was the cause of all the 
present trouble by framing the wretched Treaties of 
1 83 1-9 which abrogated the Treaty of Vienna." 
" Scraps of paper " were not hallowed In those days, 
and even Queens preferred peace to the strict ob- 
servance of treaties made by men who scarcely ever 
consulted the people. Victoria's stand against Pal- 
merston and Russell In 1864 was a notable perform- 
ance for a constitutional monarch. The following 
on sacred duties and convictions is refreshing: 

" The Queen thanks Lord Granville for his reassuring 
letter. She can only repeat that she is so thoroughly con- 
vinced of the awful danger and recklessness of our stirring 
up France and Russia to go to war, that she would be pre- 
pared to make a stand upon it, should it even cause the 
resignation of Lord Russell. . . . There are duties and con- 



34 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

victions so sacred and so strong that they outweigh all other 
considerations. . . . We must not commit a second time the 
grievous fault of signing away other people's rights and of 
*f handing over people themselves to a Sovereign to whom they 
owe no allegiance." 

Palmerston's unauthorized threat that he would 
regard it " as an affront and insult to England," 
and that he " would not stand such a thing " if an 
Austrian squadron were to pass along the English 
coasts, was provocative if it were nothing else. The 
Cabinet did not endorse the language of the fire- 
eating statesman, and though the fate of Britain for 
a long time trembled on the brink of war, the saner 
folk rallied to the side of the Queen. She wrote 
at midnight, June 23rd, 1864, to Lord Granville: 

" What the Queen is so anxious for is that the true, real, 
and great interests of the country should be considered, and 
the enormous danger of allying ourselves with France, who 
would drag us into a war with Italy and on the Rhine and 
set all Europe in a blaze; which is so far more important 
than the very foolish excitement which the Queen is sure 
will cool down the moment war seems likely to result from 
it. . . . The Treaty of 1852 must be given up." 

And given up it was; utterly destroyed by the 
wolves that feasted on the menu at Prague. Den- 
mark was stripped stark of Lauenburg, Holstein and 
the southern part of Schleswig, and the Danish por- 
tion of that Duchy. Prussia won an all-round vic- 
y i tory, leaving no unscrupulous military, diplomatic, or 
imperial method out of the deal. Our prestige and 
honour came out of all the miserable business some- 
what tousled; but the people were spared the cost of 
an unnecessary war. Whether they regretted the 



" FOUL IDOL THROWN DOWN " 35 ^ 

loss of prestige and honour suffered by her diploma- 
tists will never be known; for there is no way of esti- 
mating the value of diplomatic honour in a game 
that is carried on without the participation of the 
people. In the House of Commons, Disraeli moved 
the following motion: 

*' To express to Her Majesty our great regret that while 
the course pursued by the Government had failed to main- 
tain their avowed policy of upholding the independence and 
integrity of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence of 
this country in the councils of Europe and thereby dimin- 
ished the securities for peace." 

It was in 1864 that John Bright had something to 
say about the balance of power, which had been so 
many times upset since Napoleon was sent to St. 
Helena. Speaking in Birmingham, Bright said: 

" The theory of the balance of power is pretty nearly ' 
dead and buried. You cannot comprehend at a thought 
what is meant by the balance of power. If the record could 
be brought before you — but it is not possible for the eye j 
of humanity to scan the scroll upon which are recorded the 
sufferings which the balance of powder has entailed upon this 
country. It rises up before me when I think of it as a 
ghastly phantom w^hich during one hundred and seventy 
years, whilst it has been worshipped in this country, has 
loaded the nation with debt and taxes, has sacrificed the [ 
lives of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen, has deso- \ 
lated the homes of millions of families, and has left us, as 
the great result of the profligate expenditure it has caused, " 
a doubled peerage at one end of the social scale, and far , 
more than a doubled pauperism at the other. I am very 
glad to be here to-night, amongst other things, to be able 
to say that we may rejoice that this foul idol — fouler than 
any heathen tribe ever worshipped — has at last been thrown 



36 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

down, and that there is one superstition less which has its 
hold on the minds of English statesmen and of the English 
people." 

/ Bright perhaps regretted that so much labour was 
wasted on the schemes of diplomatists while the 
rights of individuals were neglected at home. Edu- 
j cation, the franchise, and religious equality had not 
I much chance in Parliament while foreign affairs oc- 
^ cupled the attention of statesmen. Any trouble 
abroad about some succession, or treaty, or duchy, 
was of far greater Importance than the economic, 
political, or religious rights of the people. Whether 
it Is moral for one generation to Impose the obliga- 
tions of war on the next has not yet been decided by 
politicians — much less diplomatists — nor has It yet 
occurred to any statesman to draw a sharp line of 
differentiation between those affairs that directly af- 
2- ji^ j feet the true Interests of the people, and the terrible 
; , "^ V trafficklngs which are done in the name of the people 
> X-^ithout their consent. In 1864 the agricultural la- 
» ' j^* p bourer in Britain was a chattel-slave, and millions 
t^ _^^ of the workers In the towns were politically little 
^ better off. Instead of a vote, a rifle; Instead of an 

•^ \ acre of "their native land," a place In a foreign 

1*^ ' trench; Instead of the full value of his product, a 

ticket for soup ; these were the net returns for wor- 
shipping the " foul Idol." And there were not less 
cant and hypocrisy talked In the days of Palmerston 
than are talked now in the days of Sir Edward Grey. 
The foul Idol was not, however, so easily got rid 
of as Bright Imagined. If the balance of power 
was thrown down in 1864, It did not take diplomatists 
long to set up something just as foul In Its place. 
What do terms matter? The cost Is just the same, 



RESULTS — AS BEFORE 37 

whether It be balance of power, Triple Alliance, En- 
tente Cordiale, known agreements, secret agreements, 
or " conversations between military and naval ex- 
perts." The result Is the same; the nation loaded 
with debt and taxation; hundreds of thousands of 
lives are sacrificed; homes desolated; and there stalks 
a pauperism which brings honour and glory to the 
flag that floats over the free. The prestige of a 
landless people Is something the war-poets might 
immortalize In song, and the patriotism of a double 
peerage be exalted In new epics that might rival 
Byron's " Age of Bronze." The gospel of learn- 
ing to die for one's country was satirical enough In 
1864; — certainly millions had little chance of living 
decently In It, — 

" The ' good old times ' — all times when old are good — 

Are gone; the present might be if they would; 

Great things have been, and are, and greater still 

Want little of mere mortals than their will: 

A wider space, a greener field is given 

To those who play their ' tricks before high heaven.' 

I know not if the angels weep, but men 

Have wept enough — for what ? — to weep again ! " 

Did Bright think the power to make war passed 
with the burial of the balance of power? Sanguine &=^^in*^ 
man, he little knew what a decade of diplomacy ^'i^v*'^ 
would bring forth. Abyssinia, the Austro-Prusslan A/^"*"^ 
War, and the Franco-German Wars had to come. 
The Inevitable In each case had to happen! Soon 
after Bright's speech, the god of battles was as busy 
as ever. Meanwhile legislators quarrelled like Kil- 
kenny cats as to whether the time was ripe for the 
people to have free education, more votes, and fewer 



38 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

religious animosities. Britain entered upon the 
three last decades of the nineteenth century with 
high hopes of that enlightenment which would bring 
wisdom to electors, and enable them to judge which 
party was politically best to carry on the stupendous 
work of foreign affairs. But with all these hopes 
of raising an educated electorate, not yet have the 
people learned that " JFisdom is better than weapons 
of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good." 



CHAPTER III 

1870 

" Heavy banks of cloud with occasional breaks of brighter 
sky over Europe; and all the plot, intrigue, conspiracy, and 
subterranean scheming, that had been incessant ever since 
the Crimean War disturbed the old European system, and 
Cavour first began the recasting of the map, w^as but the 
repulsive and dangerous symptom of a dire conflict in the 
depths of international politics. The Mexican adventure, 
and the tragedy of Maximilian's death at Queretaro, had 
thrown a black shadow over the iridescent and rotten fabric 
of Napoleon's power. Prussian victory over Austria at 
Sadowa had startled Europe like a thunderclap. The reac- 
tionary movement within the Catholic fold, as disclosed in 
the Vatican council, kindled many hopes among the French 
clericals, and these hopes inspired a lively antagonism to 
protestant Prussia in the breast of the Spanish-born Empress 
of the French, Prussia in 1866 had humiliated one great 
Catholic power when she defeated the Austrian monarchy 
on the battlefields of Bohemia. Was she to overthrow also 
the power that kept the Pope upon his temporal throne in 
Rome? All this, however, was no more than the fringe, 
though one of the hardest things in history is to be sure 
where substance begins and fringe ends. The cardinal fact 
for France and for Europe was German unity. Ever since 
the Danish conflict, as Bismarck afterwards told the British 
Government, the French Emperor strove to bring Prussia 
to join him in plans for their common aggrandizement. 
The unity of Germany meant, besides all else, a vast exten- 
sion of the area from which the material of military strength 
was to be drawn; and this meant the relative depression of 

39 



40 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

the power of French arms. Here was the substantial fact, 
feeding the flame of national pride with solid fuel. The 
German confederation of the Congress of Vienna was a 
skilful invention of Metternich's, so devised as to be inert 
for offence, but extremely efficient against French aggres- 
sion. A German confederation under the powerful and 
energetic leadership of Prussia gave France a very different 
neighbour." 

— Morley, Life of Gladstone. 

When the Due de Gramont, the French Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, said in 1870 that France would 
not tolerate a Hohenzollern prince on the Spanish 
throne, the balance of power theory was suddenly re- 
vived and diplomatists saw the prospect of a boom 
In their business. There had been a lull at the For- 
eign Office, and armaments were somewhat de- 
pressed. Save for the murder of some British sub- 
jects by brigands In Greece the horizon was fairly 
clear of war-clouds. But there was nothing quite 
like the succession to the Spanish throne for raising 
animosities In the best regulated royal families. Ac- 
tual military proceedings seemed to hang fire for 
^some time, and Bismarck and Moltke became de- 
pressed. The latter saw no advantage to the Ger- 
-mans In deferring the outbreak of hostilities. A 
telegram from the King of Prussia, recording a con- 
versation he had had with BenedettI, the French am- 
bassador, at Ems, reached Berlin In time to enliven 
an otherwise dull dinner for the Fafner and Fasolt 
of the modern Valhalla. The story Is an old one. 
Bismarck set to work to make the telegram read as 
It suited his aim. It was altered and published so 
that the new version should stir the laggard factions 
into strife. After Bismarck's editing, Moltke cried, 



EDITOR BISMARCK 41 

" Now it has a different ring; it sounded before like l,^- 
a parley; now it is like the flourish in answer to a 
challenge." Soon after the garbled telegram was 
known to the world, the German artisan was packing 
up for Paris, and his outraged brother in France was 
labelling his luggage for Berlin. Royal brawls / 
touch the shrine on the hearth of every labourer's 
cottage in Christendom, and it must not be expected 
that any loyal labourer will sit down under the insult 
of any nation, not his own, attempting to interfere 
with the succession of any prince to a throne. The 
people of Britain, too, were deeply agitated. Soon 
the question of our neutrality disturbed the minds 1/ 
of statesmen and men in the street. Bismarck said: 

" Great Britain should have forbidden France to enter 
on war. She was in a position to do so, and her interests 
and those of Europe demand it of her. He observed that 
if Germany should be victorious, of which he had every 
confidence, the balance of power in Europe would be pre- 
served; but if France should unfortunately obtain the upper 
hand, she would be mistress of Europe and impose her law 
on other states. England could prevent this by her action 
now. ..." 

The French had hoped Britain would support their 
claim to interfere with the Hohenzollern intentions. 
Germany criticised our lapse from strict neutrality, , 
because arms, and coals, and horses had been ex- i 
ported to France. Each belligerent looked for be- 
nevolent neutrality from Great Britain, but political 
opinion on the question was divided. The Queen, 
however, entered the lists and showed a better un- 
derstanding of what strict neutrality meant than many 
statesmen did. She wrote to Lord Granville : 



42 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

*' The Queen would much regret that any misunderstand- 
ing should embitter the feelings between us and Germany, 
and would be glad to know if you think it would be pos- 
sible to make any public declaration that would convince 
the German people that our object is to preserve a strict 
»<^' neutrality, and not in any way to favour France, but to 
\ treat both nations equally." 

It is pretty reading at this time, how Belgium 
stood as a neutral zone in 1870. To one whose 
heart is filled with loathing of the hellish business 
that has laid that busy country waste and crippled 
its brave population, nothing but bitter regret for 
the misdeeds of diplomatists is left, and a profound 
horror of the popular ignorance of the history of 
treaties. 

The Treaty of 1839 was In existence in 1870; 
how then did Britain act In relation to It? What in- 
fluence did she exert to keep Belgium free of blood- 
shed and all the woe she suffers to-day? What 
great mind was then at work? Is It too much to say 
that all the difference lies in the fact that Britain 
had a Granville then, and now she has a Grey? Our 
hands were free in 1870! and In face of the danger 
that either Germany or France might be tempted 
to gain military or territorial advantage in Belgium 
or Luxembourg, we were able to avoid dragging 
Britain into a European war. 

When the Times published the text of the draft 
treaty which Benedetti submitted to Bismarck in 
1866, the country was roused to a high pitch of 
Jingo fever. According to that document, in case 
the Emperor of the French should be led by circum- 
stances to send his troops to enter Belgium or to con- 
quer it, it was laid down that the King of Prussia 



"WHY NOT ANNEX BELGIUM?" 43 

should " grant armed aid to France," and support 
her " with all his forces, military and naval, in the 
face of and against every other power which should 
in this eventuality declare war." And that was the 
conspiracy of the agents of two of the Powers which 
signed the Treaty of 1839! France evidently in 
1866 did not place as much reliance on its sacred 
provisions as her Ministers do to-day. Some treat-^ 
ies are like great lies, in this respect : the older they 
grow the more revered they become. When that 
notorious political adventurer, Napoleon III, wrote 
to the Due de Gramont explaining what to his recol- 
lection occurred when the conspirators met in 1866, 
he said: 

" Bismarck said to Prince Napoleon in Berlin, ' You seek 
an impossible thing. You would take the provinces of the 
Rhine which are German, and wish to remain as they are. 
Why do you not annex Belgium, where a people exists of 
the same origin and the same language? I have already 
said this to the Emperor; if he agrees with these views we 
will help him to take Belgium. As for me, if I were master, 
and if I were not troubled with the King's obstinacy, this 
would be soon done.' " 

Now Britain is fighting shoulder to shoulder with 
France because Germany has violated the Treaty of 
1839! Morley in his Life of Gladstone describes 
the situation as it affected Britain: 

" There were members of the Cabinet who doubted the 
expediency of England taking any action. The real posi- 
tion of affairs, they argued, was not altered: the draft treaty 
only disclosed what everybody believed before, namely, that 
France sought compensation for Prussian aggrandizement, 
as she had secured it for Italian aggrandizement by taking 



44 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Savoy and Nice. That Prussia would not object, provided 
the compensation were not at the expense of people who 
spoke German, had all come out at the time of the Luxem- 
bourg affair. If France and Prussia agreed, how could we 
help Belgium, unless indeed Europe joined ? But then what 
chance was there of Russia and Austria joining against 
France and Prussia for the sake of Belgium, in which neither 
of them had any direct interest ? At the same time ministers 
knew that the public in England expected them to do some- 
thing, though a vote for men and money would probably suf- 
fice. The Cabinet, however, advanced a step beyond a par- 
liamentary vote. On July 30th they met and took a decision 
to which Mr. Gladstone then and always after attached 
high importance. England proposed a treaty with Prussia 
and France, providing that if the armies of either violated 
the neutrality of Belgium, Great Britain would co-operate 
with the other for its defence, but without engaging to take 
part in the general operations of the war. The treaty was 
to hold good for twelve months after the conclusion of the 
war. Bismarck at once came into the engagement. France 
loitered a little, but after the battle of Worth made no more 
difficulty, and the instrument was signed on August 9th." 

It Is a nice point in international law how far Aus- 
tria and Russia lent their sanction to the making of 
the Treaties of 1870. Anyway, the treaties signed 
by Britain, France and Germany were to continue 
for the period of the war and for a year after the 
termination of hostilities. It was the publication of 
the draft treaty of 1866 that threw upon the Govern- 
ment the necessity of " either doing something fresh 
to secure Belgium, or else of saying that under no 
circumstances would we take any step to secure her 
from absorption," so Mr. Gladstone said In laying 
the case before John Bright. In a later letter to 
Bright he said: 



GLADSTONE ON BELGIUM 45 

" You will, I am sure, give me credit for good faith when 
I say, especially on Lord Granville's part as on my own, 
who are most of all responsible, that we take this step in 
the interest of peace. . . . The recommendation set up in 
opposition to it generally is, that we should simply declare 
that we will defend the neutrality of Belgium by arms in 
case it should be attacked. Now the sole or single-handed 
defence of Belgium would be an enterprise which we incline 
to think Quixotic. ... If the Belgian people desire, on 
their own account, to join France or any other country, 
I for one will be no party to taking up arms to prevent it." 

He added that it would be a crime to stand aloof 
and see Belgium taken by another country to satisfy 
dynastic greed. Then Britain's position would have 
been intolerable had she not been perfectly free from 
European entanglements. 

However, a new danger arose after the signing of 
the treaties. Austria was looking for an opportunity 
of getting even with Bismarck for the troubles of 
1866. The Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
hoped to drag Italy into the row. Russia was likely 
to side with Germany. Napoleon thought Denmark 
might be persuaded to join the fray and get Schleswig 
back from Germany. The squabble which began with 
the HohenzoUern claim to the Spanish succession 
seemed likely to Involve the whole of Europe. 
Then as now, the Initial trouble was lost sight of In 
the myriad complications set up by former affrays. 
Of course, In all these intrigues diplomatists were 
looking after " the Interests of the people." Na- 
tional " prestige " and " honour " were acclaimed by 
the proletariats In every capital of Europe. The Im- 
perial aspirations of France, so dear to the hearts of 
her revolutionists, ranked in ardour with the im- 



46 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

perial desires of the small kingdoms and duchies of 
the German states, which were to lose their identity 
in the maw of Bismarck's scheme of confederation. 
The mixed populations of a " united " Austria spent 
sleepless nights thinking of their national " heritage," 
and Italy, with her people all of one mind, yearned 
for an opportunity of showing how highly she valued 
her " honour " by siding with Austria in the struggle. 
The success of Germany at the beginning of the 
war enabled Lord Granville to form a neutral league 
which kept the ring for the French and Germans. 
There is a fine passage in Fitzmaurice's Life of 
Granville, which bears directly on the wisdom of 
his action in forming the league of neutrals. It is 
strikingly appropriate here; besides, it bears repeti- 
tion because it so graphically describes the position 
of Russia in European afi'airs forty years ago : 

" It was argued in France that had Lord Granville pur- 
sued an opposite policy to that adopted, and had the Queen 
at his advice placed herself at the head of a militant league 
— so easy are such combinations on paper — Denmark, 
Italy, Austria, and Turkey would, with Great Britain, have 
forced conditions upon Count Bismarck, and been ready to 
bring Russia to a standstill in the event of the Czar coming 
to the rescue of the King of Prussia. According to these 
calculations not only would France then have been saved, 
but Great Britain herself would have escaped the humilia- 
tion of having subsequently to consent to the abrogation of 
the clauses of the Treaty of Paris relating to the neutraliza- 
tion of the Black Sea. If Lord Granville, such was the 
contention, had imposed an armed mediation on the com- 
batants, and had practically dictated terms of peace to Ger- 
many, Great Britain and France could afterwards have 
joined hands against Russia, and the clauses of the Treaty 
of 1856 regarding the Black Sea would have been main- 



GRANVILLE, FOREIGN MINISTER 47 

tained in their integrity. In refusing so to act, Lord Gran- 
ville, according to these critics, showed an absolute lack of 
foresight, and missed an obvious opportunity in the month 
of September, 1870. The argument, however, overlooks 
the main factor of the situation, the determination of Ger- 
many to refuse mediation, a determination plainly and 
openly declared. It also overlooks the fact, frequently for- 
gotten by foreign writers when engaged in making a policy 
for Great Britain, that, in the famous words of Lord John 
Russell used in the debate on the case of Don Pacifico, the 
Foreign Secretary of this country is the Minister not of 
France, nor of Russia, nor of any other foreign country, 
but of Great Britain alone, and has to think first and fore- 
most of her interests. The decision which Lord Granville 
had to take depended on the relative importance which as 
Foreign Minister he attached to the preservation of peace 
and to the maintenance of the Black Sea clauses. The for- 
mer and not the latter was in Lord Granville's opinion the 
main object. It is certain that no intervention except an 
armed mediation could have produced any marked result, 
and an armed mediation would only have extended the area 
of disturbance. Nor can it even be assumed as a matter 
beyond doubt that a mediation in favour of France, even if 
successful, would necessarily have ended in the preservation 
of the Black Sea clauses, for an armed mediation would 
inevitably have thrown Germany into the arms of Russia 
even more completely than before the commencement of the 
war. It is idle now to speculate whether, under any cir- 
cumstances, the clauses of the Black Sea Treaty could long 
have remained part of the public law of Europe; but what 
degree of sacrifice it would be wise for Great Britain to 
make in order to maintain them, if the other Powers would 
make no efFort to do so, was a question which the British 
Government alone was competent to decide. On the as- 
sumption that the clauses were worth an effort to save, it 
is hardly possible to imagine any method more certain to 
have immediately led not only to their final loss, but to that 



48 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

also of other and far more valuable provisions of the Trea- 
ties of 1856, than to have initiated at this date a gigantic:' 
struggle in which Germany, backed by Russia alone, would 
have been engaged in a hand-to-hand contest with the rest 
of Europe." 

/ How national dispositions change under the guid- 
ance of diplomatists is one of the strangest things, 
outside the ultramontane forest where the lion will 
lie down with the lamb, that can be imagined. The 
fear then was the union of the arms of Germany 
and Russia. Then our Foreign Secretary was not 
the Minister of any country but our own. And a 
precept of the Foreign Office was that phrase which 
in our school-days we had to write in our copy-books 
one hundred times by way of penalty for some prank, 
" Mind your own affairs." Forty years back, our 
policy was a selfish one: our interests first. And it 
was good for Europe as a whole. Then, diplomatic 
humiliation was preferred to war; now we prefer a 
European cataclysm rather than diplomatic humilia- 
tion. In those days treaties were " scraps of paper," 
even when their dates were of that generation; now 
" scraps of paper " are holy writ, though their dates 
carry us back more than three score years and ten. 
Holy writ! Not all the religious bodies in this 
Christian land ever paid to holy writ half the atten- 
tion we have lately paid to the Treaty of 1839. 

In the negotiations which followed, Thiers gave 
utterance to a prophetic statement when he spoke to 
Lord Granville of the apathy shown by Great Britain. 
He referred to Britain's loss of dignity and " the 
danger to her and all Europe of the immense pre- 
ponderance of Germany: more immediately to Aus- 
tria, which must lose her German provinces; for 



JOURNALISTS AND STATESMEN 49 

there was nothing that North Germany, with a popu- 
lation of 60,000,000, could not do, acting as a ma- 
chine, and led by such a man as Bismarck." Europe 
had a foretaste of Prussian militarism; of its arro- 
gance, its vindictiveness, its cruelty. And now it 
would be well for Britain to learn that the same 
sharp line which divided the political party from the 
military party in those days, still marks the line of 
cleavage between the parties to-day. While jour- 
nalists and statesmen are lumping together indis- 
criminately everything which is of German origin, 
and blasting the whole life and thought of that peo- 
ple with one charge, it should be remembered that, 
after the war, we shall have a German Minister at 
the Court of St. James, and at Berlin there will be a 
British ambassador. Diplomatic relations are not 
broken off forever, no, no matter what the news- 
papers say. 

Even Thiers, after a visit in 1870 to the Prussian 
headquarters, found, so Lord Lyons wrote, " that 
there was a political party and a military party, each 
clearly defined. The political party, with which 
Count Bismarck himself in a great measure agreed 
was desirous of bringing the war to an end by con- 
cluding peace on comparatively moderate terms. 
The military party held that the glory of the Prus- 
sian arms and the future security of Germany de- 
manded that the rights of war should be pushed to 
the uttermost, and that France should be laid waste, 
ruined, and humiliated to such a degree, as to render 
it impossible for her to wage war again with Germany 
for very many years." Instead of doing everything 
now to embitter the best minds in Germany, how 
much better It would be to seek out the remnant of 



so HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

the political party, and sow the seeds of the peace 
that some day must be consummated, and spread the 
spirit of amity that must rise again in the two peo- 
ples 1 It is difficult to do this so long as the god of 
battles is presiding over British interests, but the day 
may come when the people will forsake that brass 
deity and turn to the All-Father. France was sore 
in 1870, but France traded with Germany after the 
fighting was done. 

Peace negotiations in 1870 had a tortuous and 
rather degraded road to travel. Bismarck said that 
Thiers, through a third party, proposed to make 
peace and cede Alsace and Lorraine in exchange for 
Belgium, by giving France to King Leopold, and that 
the Belgian King was most favourably disposed to 
the scheme. What schemes are now being hatched 
for grabbing territory, only diplomatists can say; but 
it is to be hoped that the Allies will not depart from 
the conditions laid down in the British House of 
Commons by the Prime Minister at the beginning of 
the war. We might look back to 1870 with some 
profit and remember what Gladstone had to say 
about the settlement: 

" If the contingency happen, not very probable, of a sud- 
den accommodation which shall include the throttling of 
Alsace and part of Lorraine, without any voice previously 
raised against it, it will in my opinion be a standing reproach 
to England. There is indeed the Russian plan of not 
recognizing that in which we have no part; but it is difficult 
to say what this comes to." 

Then later he prophesied a bad time for Europe 
as a result of the settlement: 

" I have an apprehension that this violent laceration and 



WHAT IS NEUTRALITY? 51 

tiansfer is to lead us from bad to worse, and to be the 
beginning of a new series of complications." 

Our freedom from Continental engagements saved ^, 
us from innumerable troubles in those days. The j 
position Lord Granville took up with regard to strict j 
neutrality could only have been maintained so long ' 
as Britain kept her hands quite free of entanglements, 
and secret engagements. Neutrality is a word that 
has been bandied about since the beginning of this' 
war, but it had another quite different meaning when 
Lord Granville was at the Foreign Office. The 
policy of to-day has been one of benevolent neutral- 
ity, and it has perhaps been one of the chief reasons 
why we were drawn into the tragedy. Lord Gran- \ 
ville defined the difference between strict neutrality 
and benevolent neutrality most clearly: ' 

" It seems hardly to admit of doubt that neutrality, when 
it once departs from strict neutrality, runs the risk of alter- 
ing its essence, and that the moment a neutral allows his / 
proceedings to be biassed by predilection for one of the two ' 
belligerents he ceases to be neutral. The idea, therefore, of 
a benevolent neutrality can mean little less than the extinc- 
tion of neutrality." 

According to this definition the policy of the For- 
eign Office of to-day is preposterous, and the des- 
patches of the Foreign Secretary to our ambassadors 
at Paris and Berlin, asking the French and German 
Governments to declare their intentions towards Bel- 
gium, were mere diplomatic subterfuge and pretext,! ' 
done to hoodwink the people and Parliament. Our^ 
position was vitiated by the entente and the secret \ 
agreement entered into in 1906, when conversations j 
between French and British military and naval ex- J 



? 52 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

, perts were permitted by the very Foreign Secretary 
*f that put on the mantle of strict neutrality at the end 
/ 1/ of July. Can any one now doubt that our proceed- 
lU/l ings were " biassed by predilection " when our For- 
/ J^ eign Minister exchanged letters with M. Cambon in 
November, 19 12, which committed Britain to the 
obligations of war? Were we or were we not 
biassed when our ambassador at Petersburg was 
informed about the orders given to the fleet on July 
27th? 
/"^ A neutral's hands must be free ! — at no time since 
U January, 1906, have our hands been free. Only a 
/ position of " splendid isolation " can leave a nation 
; free to act in a strictly honourable way in affairs of 
' this kind. There can be no impartiality where the 
* policy of a country is fettered by secret understand- 
^ ings. The phrase " foreign friendships," used so 
^/"^V/^often of late, is in itself an indictment; and, in con- 
\^ "^ I ] nection with France, proves how absurd our position 
' '^ as a so-called neutral power was all through the ne- 
gotiations since the murder of the Austrian arch- 
duke. What would Lord Granville have thought of 
our position as a " neutral " had he known of arma- 
ment rings and touting diplomats ? What would he 
have said of London newspapers encouraging their 
correspondents in foreign capitals to Inflame Jingoes 
abroad, while the journals benefited from Russian 
money paid for supplements? No one can look 
through the report of Parliamentary Proceedings 
since 1906, and read the questions and replies re- 
garding the Expeditionary Force without being im- 
pressed with the notion that we were committed up 
to the hilt to support France if she were attacked by 
a third Power. Neutrality ! Neutrality was a term 



A USEFUL TREATY — NOW! 53 

to conjure with In Lord Granville's day; but since 
the policy of " foreign friendships " was inaugurated 
at the Foreign Office the term might just as well have V 
been obliterated from the vocabulary of diplomatists. ^ 

As for the Treaty of 1839 which guaranteed the 
independence and neutrality of Belgium, its existence 
was never thought of by any one outside the Foreign 
Office since the close of the Franco-German War, 
until an excuse had to be found for our implication 
in this Imbroglio. Anyway, no attempt was made 
to revive the treaties of August 9th, 1870. And for 
a very good reason; our understanding with France 
precluded the possibility of such a thing. The farce 
of asking France If she would observe the independ- 
ence and neutrality of Belgium could only have been 
appreciated by Germany. On July 31st our fleet 
had nearly bottled up the German navy, and an in- 
vasion of the northern and western coasts of France 
was not probable. There was only one way the 
Germans could invade France, with whom she had 
no particular quarrel, and that was by violating the 
Treaty of 1839, and advancing her troops through 
Luxembourg and Belgium. No one knew that bet- 
ter than our Foreign Secretary when he sent his 
despatches to Paris and Berlin on July 31st. What 
Is to be said of a foreign policy which aggravates a 
nation by hemming it In with secret understandings 
and plans of General Staffs, so that when it Is at- 
tacked on Its eastern frontier by a formidable foe- 
(with whom we act in benevolent ways, and whoi/^ 
with the other Powers Is privy to the Belgian Treaty 
of 1839), ^"<^ says to the aggravated country, " You 
must not use the only road left open for rapid move- 
ments against the ally of the nation on your eastern 



54 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

frontier " ; while all the time in secret agreement with 
the Power on the western frontier to lend armed 
support in the event of an attack? A foreign policy 
that binds together for obligations of war three 
Powers signatory of a treaty of neutrality against 
two Powers also signatory of the same treaty, and 
which places one of these latter in an invidious posi- 
tion as a belligerent, is not based upon the policy of 
neutrality laid down by Lord Granville. 

But in the event of one of the Powers signatory 
of the Treaty of 1839 violating the neutrality and 
independence of Belgium, were we bound to help 
lay waste its territory in process of chastising the 
initial violator? Under the terms of the treaty, our 
obligations were not defined. There is no provision 
in it which necessitates Britain sending troops into 
Belgium to make war on any Power that should vio- 
late its territory. The diplomatists who drew up 
the treaty knew what they were doing when they left 
the question of obligation open. They had no in- 
tention of committing their respective Governments 
to the obligations of war. The only possible way 
Britain could have insisted on all the Powers signa- 
tory of the treaty observing its provisions was by 
maintaining a position of strict neutrality. This 
would have enabled her to say that she would act 
against any one or more of the Powers who should 
violate Belgian territory, and that British action 
would be limited to Belgium only. In the Treaty of 
1870 the obligations of Britain were clearly defined: 

** The Queen on her part declares that if during the said 
hostilities the armies of France should violate that neutral- 
ity (Belgian) she will be prepared to co-operate with his 
Prussian Majesty for the defence of the same in such man- 



CONTORTIONIST DIPLOMACY s5 

ner as may be mutually agreed upon, employing for that 
purpose her naval and military forces to insure its observ- 
ance, and to maintain in conjunction w^ith his Prussian 
Majesty, then and thereafter, the independence and neu- 
trality of Belgium." 

In the same treaty our liability was strictly limited, 
and the area of our operations in the case of action 
laid down: 

" It is clearly understood that Her Majesty the Queen 
of the United Kingdom does not engage herself by this 
Treaty to take part in any of the general operations of the 
war now carried on between the North German Confed- 
eration and France, beyond the limits of Belgium." 

These provisions revealed the necessity of dis- 
pensing with the Treaty of 1839, which was useless 
for all practical purposes when the danger of in- 
vasion presented itself to Belgium in the days when 
Lord Granville was in control of the Foreign Oflfice. 
Military operations have so far shown that Britain 
has had something else to do than protect the neu- 
trality of Belgium within the area of Belgium. She 
Is at present engaged in doing the very thing she 
engaged with his Prussian Majesty not to do in 1 870 : 
that is, take part In any of the general operations 
of the war. Under the Treaty of 1870, Britain 
could not have landed a drummer-boy on French 
soil. Our actions on the Continent since the out- 
break of hostilities have no connection of any kind 
with the provisions of the Treaty signed in 1870. 

It is not easy to say how the Treaty of 1870 af- 
fected the position of Russia and Austria as signa- 
tories of the old treaty. Their interest was only con- 
cerned with that of 1839, and the fact that they were 



S6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

not parties to the new treaties raised a debatable 
point as to the validity of the old one. All the sig- 
natories of a treaty must agree to any alteration of 
its provisions. Did Russia and Austria agree In 
1870 to the making of the treaties of that year? 
Morley says, referring to the situation in 1870, 
" What chance was there of Russia and Austria join- 
ing against France and Prussia for the sake of Bel- 
gium, in which neither of them had any direct in- 
terest? " In 1830 Britain's plan of preventing Bel- 
gium from becoming a French province was no easy 
business, for it destroyed the triumph of 18 14-5 
in making Belgium part of the kingdom of Holland. 
Russia and Austria were lukewarm parties to the 
affair; and Prussia knew then she was only a party 
to a deal of Palmerston's to dish Talleyrand. Let 
us be ordinarily honest. Let us for Heaven's sake 
get away from the neurasthenic slosh and tosh of 
" violating treaties," and think of our history in con- 
nection with numberless " scraps of paper." No- 
body in the long-run is going to be taken in by our 
sanctimoniousness, our smug lifting up of hands to 
heaven as though heaven were a colony of the Brit- 
ish Empire. " Things and actions are what they 
are," said Bishop Butler, in a noble passage, " and the 
consequences of them will be what they will be. Why 
then should we desire to be deceived? " 

The hoary method of war first and law after Is 
being repeated in this present complication. When 
the question of the legal position of the five Powers 
with regard to the old treaty is thrashed out after 
the war, there will be a rush for precedents. A dip- 
lomatic war broke out In Europe when Russia an- 
nounced to the Powers in 1870 that she considered 



" AN ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLE " 57 

herself no longer bound by the provisions of the 
Treaty of 1856. Mr. Odo Russell, who was sent 
by Lord Granville on a mission to Bismarck, at the 
headquarters of the German army in France, sounded 
Lord Derby and Lord Russell before he left Eng- 
land, and gathered from Lord Russell that he did not 
believe that the Black Sea clauses could be permanent 
and that he favoured modification. Lord Derby 
said, " He would fight for the neutrality of Egypt, 
but not for the neutrality of the Black Sea." The 
actions of Lord Palmerston and his ministry were 
the cause of deep dissatisfaction in 1856, and Lord 
Granville was severely criticised for the part Britain 
took in 1 870-1. It was said that he had tamely 
permitted Russia to flaunt her decision to disregard 
the Black Sea clauses in the face of all the Powers. 
Our diplomatic prestige suffered some humiliation i^ 
on both occasions. In the Treaty of Paris, 1856, it 
was laid down that the annexed convention could not 
be annulled or modified without the assent of the 
Powers signatory of the Treaty. Russia's decision 
was therefore a violation of that provision. The 
point of consequence here, however, Is the fact that 
a Conference met in London early in 1871 where the 
Powers, including Russia, signed an agreement to 
recognize, 

" that it is an essential principle of the law of nations, 
that no Power can liberate itself from the engagements of 
a treaty, nor modify the stipulations thereof, unless with 
the consent of the contracting Powers, by means of an 
amicable arrangement." 

If this declaration of the London Conference 
which defined an essential principle of the law of na- 



58 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tlons still holds good, what becomes of the Treaty of 
1839? That Treaty did not define the obligations 
of the Powers which signed it. The Treaties of 
1870 modified its provisions by defining strict obhga- 
tions without the consent of Russia and Austria, 
Did the actions of Britain, France, and Prussia, in 
1870, according to an essential principle of the law 
of nations, make the Treaty of 1839 null and void? 
Mr. Gladstone described the new treaties as more 
stringent measures for the protection of Belgian neu- 
trality than the general guarantee of 1839. The 
only way the apologists of our foreign policy of to- 
day can defend our action in making the neutrality 
of Belgium, as laid down in the Treaty of 1839, the 
casus belli, is by isolating that treaty and exempting 
it from the law that affected the Treaty of Paris, 
and the Agreement arrived at by the Powers at the 
London Conference of 1871, when the Powers recog- 
nized that " no Power can liberate itself from the en- 
gagements of a treaty, nor modify the stipulations 
thereof, unless with the consent of the contracting 
Powers." 

International lawyers have gone so far In defining 
our position under the old treaty as to say that we 
should have accepted the German guarantee of Bel- 
gian integrity and independence at the close of the 
war, though technically the spirit of the treaty were 
violated by Germany in despatching troops across the 
territory. Britain was not in any way empowered 
by the treaty to declare war against Germany be- 
cause she asked Belgium for a free passage for her 
troops. Why were only Germany and France asked 
the question? Why were Austria and Russia ig- 
nored? Russia was every bit as much an ally of 



INCONSISTENCIES 59 

Britain and France on July 31st as she is to-day. Is 
there a European law? Surely all history teaches 
us that with nations it is only a question of time 
when each in turn will say with Alexander I, " What 
do you suppose that all your parchments and your 
treaties signify to me? " Ashley says, " During the 
Crimean War we sent a remonstrance to Holland on 
her violation of neutrality in supplying arms to Rus- 
sia, and then discovered that our own Ordnance De- 
partment had been ordering from the Dutch large 
quantities of gunpowder." 

The sublime faith that nations have from time 
Immemorial placed in the efficacy of treaties is one of 
the features of nineteenth century diplomacy. Con- 
sider the faith of the Belgian Government in the 
Treaty of 1839 ! On August 3rd, the Belgian Gov- 
ernment decided not to appeal to the guarantee of the 
Powers ; but within twenty-four hours the King of 
the Belgians telegraphed to King George to exert 
diplomatic intervention, and no reference was made 
in the telegram to the Treaty of 1839. Belgium 
knew from the beginning that in the event of a Euro- 
pean war Germany must advance against France 
through Belgium. Yet on August 2nd our Foreign 
Secretary said the Cabinet had not decided whether 
the neutrality of Belgium should be made the casus 
belli/ On August ist our ambassador at Brussels 
was told by the Belgian Government that they were 
in a position to defend themselves against Intrusion, 
though the relations between Belgium and her neigh- 
bours were excellent, and there was no reason to sus- 
pect their Intentions! Nevertheless, Belgium was 
something of an armed camp at Easter, 19 14. 
There Is a discrepancy somewhere; for huge prepara- 



6o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tlons for war seem unnecessary when a country has 
no reason to suspect the Intentions of her neighbours, 
and her relations with them are excellent. 

Belgium, however, thought it well to be prepared 
for all emergencies. No doubt her faith in Euro- 
pean law needed armed support. We know now 
that for eighteen months at least the Belgian Gov- 
ernment had been preparing for the day when Britain 
and France would be engaged together in a European 
war. Alone, Belgium was no match for Germany. 
Which Power then did she fear? Why should a 
neutral nation, with an abounding faith in the law 
of nations, pass, within five years, two laws to in- 
crease her military establishments? In January, 
19 lo, she raised her war forces from 140,000 to 
180,000, and In November, 19 12, she raised her war 
army from 180,000 to 340,000. What is the good 
of diplomacy? What is the good of treaties, old or 
new, if distrust is to be the result of all efforts at neu- 
tralization and the making of friendships? There 
Is nothing quite so preposterous in the annals of for- 
eign affairs as the arming of Belgium, this neutral 
state, against a nation which had guaranteed her 
neutrality. Does it not prove that the moral value 
of a treaty depends on the weight of armament be- 
hind It? Treaties are to blame for the desolation of 
Belgium; and the treaties, or alliances, or ententes, 
or engagements, or whatever diplomatists call them, 
that have been the cause of all the dreadful havoc, 
are those which united France and Russia, and united 
Britain and France. These engagements have been 
feared from the first by all men who look beyond the 
point of their noses. The policy of the British For- 
eign Office, ever since secret arrangements were en- 



BEHIND THE LOOKING-GLASS 6i 

tered into with the French and Spanish Governments 
in 1904, has been the most sinister menace to the 
peace of Europe. 

When the war is over international lawyers may 
be asked to define -the position of a neutral state 
that acts in conjunction with signatories of its Treaty 
of neutrality against other signatories before its pro- 
visions are in any way violated. Fitzmaurice, in 
dealing with the negotiations of the Powers in con- 
nection with the Suez Canal, said: 

" The world knew of the ' neutralization ' of Belgium and 
of the Black Sea; and it had heard of the neutralization of 
the Republic of Cracow. But the essence of those and 
other analogous arrangements was the exclusion of the mili- 
tary and naval forces of the Powers from entry upon the 
neutralized territories and seas." 

If the essence of the Belgian treaty was the ex- 
clusion of the military and the naval forces of the 
Powers how could the casus belli of this war be the 
Treaty of 1839, when Britain was engaged to France 
and Russia against Germany and Austria before 
Germany invaded Belgium? Well may some curi- 
ous people ask the very pertinent question, Would 
Britain have taken action against the French if they 
had been the first to invade Belgium? Diplomatic 
circumstances alter international cases. How they 
have altered over a period of half a century beats all 
the ideas of topsy-turvydom that Gilbert or Lewis 
Carroll ever dreamed of. Take Egypt: Lord 
Derby in 1871 would fight for the neutrality of 
Egypt. In 1857 Palmerston wrote the following to 
Lord Clarendon: 



62 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

" Piccadilly, March ist, 1857. 
" My dear Clarendon, 

" As to the Emperor's schemes about Africa, the sooner 
Cowley sends in his grounds of objection the better. It is 
very possible that many parts of the world would be better 
governed by France, England, and Sardinia than they are 
now; and we need not go beyond Italy, Sicily, and Spain for 
example. But the alliance of England and France has de- 
rived its strength not merely from the military and naval 
power of the two states, but from the force of the moral 
principle upon which that union has been founded. Our 
union has for its foundation resistance to unjust aggression, 
the defence of the weak against the strong, and the mainte- 
nance of the existing balance of power. How, then, could 
we combine to become unprovoked aggressors, to imitate in 
Africa the partition of Poland by the conquest of Morocco 
for France, of Tunis and some other state for Sardinia, and 
of Egypt for England ? And, more especially, how could 
England and France, who have guaranteed the integrity of 
the Turkish Empire, turn round and wrest Egypt from the 
Sultan? A coalition for such a purpose would revolt the 
moral feelings of mankind, and would certainly be fatal to 
any English Government that was a party to it. Then, 
as to the balance of power to be maintained by giving us 
Egypt, but we do not want the burden of governing Egypt, 
and its possession would not, as a political, military, and 
naval question be considered, in this country, as a set-of¥ 
against the possession of Morocco by France. Let us try 
to improve all these countries by the general influence of 
our commerce, but let us all abstain from a crusade of con- 
quest which would call upon us the condemnation of all 
other civilized nations." 

It would be difficult for the fiercest opponent of 
present foreign policy to crowd Into the same space 
a blacker Indictment than time Itself has made of 
the fine sentiments of Palmerston set down in that 



UNRECORDED AGREEMENTS 63 

letter. Egypt ! What memories the name brings 
in a flash to the student of foreign pohcy. Den- 
shawi! The partition of Morocco! Shades of 
Algeciras and Agadir ! And all that has been done 
or sanctioned by Britain up to this year would in 
1857 "revolt the moral feelings of mankind and 
would certainly be fatal to any English Govern- 
ment that was a party to it! " What a conlmen- 
tary on the electors of to-day! 

After all, known treaties are the least significant 
work of diplomatists. What Is written down in 
them may some day be revealed; but secret agree- 
ments and tacit understandings made by the agents 
of Governments may be without end, and their true 
import never reach the people until they are at 
each other's throats. To what base commitments 
nations have been pledged by their diplomatists, the 
records of the nineteenth century give us but an ink-, 
ling. The cross purposes of the chancelleries seem 
to be without limit. Driblets of information left 
behind by ambassadors and secretaries of legations 
frequently show that what is one nation's meat is 
another's poison. Lord Granville seems to have 
been an exceptional man; one who kept this country 
fairly free from entanglements. The dlflliculties of 
his position in the eighties may be gleaned from this 
passage from Fitzmaurlce : 

" Good relations were now restored with Germany and 
France; but if a struggle was to take place with Russia, 
Italy was also a factor to be taken into account. By the 
Triple Alliance of 1882 the German Government was as- 
sured of the support of Austria-Hungary and Italy against 
any attack by Russia or by France. By the subsequent 
Treaty of 1884 with Russia a further security had been 



y 



64 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

obtained by Germany against a French attack. The sub- 
stance of this Treaty, though not actually known, was 
probably suspected by the Italian Government, and her 
statesmen apprehended that Germany, once assured of the 
neutrality of Russia, might in the end attach a diminished 
importance to the friendship of Italy. They consequently 
desired, by means of an understanding with Great Britain, 
to obtain a further security for their northwestern and 
maritime frontier against France, and hoped to secure it 
by offering effective military support in Egypt, in return 
for an assurance of naval aid in the Mediterranean in case 
of a French attack on Italy. Advantageous as such an 
offer in many respects might appear, Lord Granville ad- 
hered to the view that British policy consisted in avoiding 
entangling bargains with particular Powers in Egypt. The 
choice, in his opinion, still lay between the European con- 
cert and individual action by Great Britain. In the finan- 
cial negotiations, it has been seen, he had supported the 
proposals of Lord Northbrook for the latter. He had ended 
by having to consent to the former. But he had at least 
escaped joining in an Anglo-French guarantee." 

The changes which have taken place since that 
time, so vast and opposite they are, fill one with 
amazement that the foul Idols of diplomacy, no mat- 
ter by what name they are called, should be super- 
stitions still In the minds of the British people. 
What diplomacy cost Britain In the twenty years, 
since Bright congratulated the audience at Birming- 
ham in 1864 to the year when Gordon set out on 
his mission In Egypt, must be Incalculable. And 
what did the British masses get In return? In 1884 
the burning domestic questions were the franchise, 
education, land, the Church, and Ireland. Since 
1864 some little progress, very little, had been made. 
Russia still threatened the peace of Europe and was 



MISSIONARY LABOURS 65 

a danger to western civilization and individual lib- 
erty. The work of foreign affairs entailed enor- 
mous sacrifices of blood and money. The peerage \ 
increased by scores; the cost of poor-rehef, infant 
mortality, insanity, all increased. Social evils 
spread; the slum in the towns and the unsanitary 
cottage in the country became the forcing-houses of 
consumptives. The army of the unemployed had its 
battalions in every town in the land. But more and 
more money was found by the churches for foreign 
missions; and slowly the work of converting the 
heathen to a Christian method of life made progress, 
and the bayonet and high explosives were the sym- 
bols that impressed the peoples of Asia and Africa 
that England was the land of the free. 



CHAPTER IV 

FRIENDSHIPS 

" For all purposes of a resident ambassador, I hear persons 
extensively and well acquainted among our foreign em- 
bassies at this date declare, That a well-selected Times re- 
porter or ' own correspondent ' ordered to reside in for- 
eign capitals, and keep his eyes open, and (though spar- 
ingly) his pen going, would in reality be much more effec- 
tive ; — and surely we see well he would come to a good 
deal cheaper! Considerably cheaper in expense of money; 
and expense of falsity and grimacing hypocrisy (of which 
no human arithmetic can count the ultimate cost) incal- 
culably cheaper! If this is the fact, why not treat it as 
such? If this is so in any measure, we had better in that 
measure admit it to be so! The time, I believe, has come 
for asking with considerable severity. How far is it so? 
Nay, there are men now current in political society, men of 
weight though also of wit, who have been heard to say, 
' That there was but one reform for the Foreign Office, — 
to set a live coal under it,' and with, of course, a fire- 
brigade which could prevent the undue spread of the de- 
vouring element into neighbouring houses, let that reform 
it! In such odour is the Foreign Office too, if it were not 
that the Public, oppressed and nearly stifled with a mere 
infinitude of bad odours, neglects this one, — in fact, being 
able nearly always to avoid the street where it is, escape 
this one, and (except a passing curse, once in the quarter 
or so) as good as forgets the existence of it." 

— Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets. 

It is hard to believe there was a time when Ger- 
many desired neither colonies nor fleets. We have 

66 



" A PLACE IN THE SUN " 67 

heard so much in recent years of Germany wanting 
our place in the sun, of her determined poHcy to 
wrest from us all our colonies, that the Bismarck of 
the early seventies seems a personage connected with 
the Swiss admiralty- rather than a Chancellor in 
Berlin. A day or two ago a reputable journal told 
its readers that the whole of the present trouble came 
from the ambition of Bismarck to found an empire 
as vast as that of Britain, with naval and merchant 
fleets dominating all the seas. The statement was 
not true; but in war-time that is a small matter. 
It was, however, a relief to find neither Nietzsche 
nor Treitschke responsible for the existence of the 
Kiel Canal and the Hamburg-American Line. The 
cry " Colonies for Germany " had no force until 
1883, and then Bismarck had only an electioneer- 
ing affection for it. Ten years earlier he told Odo 
Russell that " Colonies would only be a cause of 
weakness, because colonies could only be defended by 
powerful fleets. Many colonies had been offered 
him — he had rejected them, and wished only for 
coaling stations acquired by treaty from other na- 
tions." The letters of Lord Ampthill indicate 
clearly how the change in Bismarck's policy came 
about : 

" I am in perfect despair at Prince Bismarck's present 
inclination to increase his popularity before the general 
election by taking up an anti-English attitude. Compelled 
by the colonial mania, which has gradually come to the 
surface in Germany, to act contrary to his better convictions 
in the Angra Pequena question, he has discovered an un- 
explored mine of popularity in starting a colonial policy. 
. . . The laxity of our quarantine regulations has always 
been a German grievance, and the news that the German 



68 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Government has brought it before the Conference, has 
been hailed with enthusiastic approval in the German press. 
Men like Professor Virchow and Dr, Koch accuse us openly 
of having brought the cholera into France." 

In 1884 Lord Granville wrote to Lord Ampthill: 

" I have never had a more arduous fight ; the difficulty 
being that the Colonial Office had a very strong case which 
they had already put in writing, and their opposition was 
strongly backed by the Chancellor . . . Bismarck's atti- 
tude is disagreeable. He has always been violently op- 
posed to colonization. He is now obliged to yield . . ." 

'^' Rulers may have short reigns, but they have some- 
times long memories. In all the weary wranglings 
between London and Berlin in the early eighties 
there is nothing more noticeable than the suspicion 
in Bismarck's mind of all our manoeuvring with re- 
gard to his colonial grievances. There was much to 
remember which would, cause suspicion. Fitzmau- 
rice gives some reason for this. In thinking over 
the following extract, it may be well for us to let our 
minds go back to early August, and recollect how 
chary our Foreign Minister was of touching the 
Luxembourg question when the neutrality of that 
state was an affair of the hour. FItzmaurlce lifts 
the curtain and reveals these signposts of foreign 
policy which were not to our credit: 

" In the Liberal Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
Prince Bismarck had not failed to recognize the old Con- 
servative Foreign Secretary, the Lord Stanley of 1867, who 
in his opinion had betrayed Europe over the Luxembourg 
question by allowing his own signature to the Treaty of 
that year to be explained away: a proceeding which he had 
never forgiven. In order to avoid war between France 



DISTRUST AND SUSPICION 69 

and Prussia, it had been agreed that Luxembourg should 
be neutralized, that the Powers should guarantee the neu- 
trality of the Duchy, and that it should be placed under 
their collective guarantee. But the ink was hardly dry 
on the paper which embodied these conditions before ex- 
planations were added as to the character of this collective 
guarantee by Lord Derby, then Prime Minister, which 
seemed to reduce the international sanction thereby given 
to the level of a moral sanction only. The Treaty, it was 
explained, gave a right to make war, but it imposed no 
obligation; none in any case on any of the high contracting 
Powers, unless the others all fulfilled their own obligations 
simultaneously. If this interpretation were correct. Lord 
Granville had said at the time, speaking from the benches 
opposite, it was difficult indeed to understand the impor- 
tance which Russia had attached to the guarantee, or why 
Lord Stanley had shown such hesitation in becoming a 
party to it. The old wound still rankled, and if in 1884 
considerations of domestic policy were pushing Prince Bis- 
marck into a course of conduct hostile to Great Britain in 
order to secure the colonial vote in the German Parliament, 
he was not discouraged by the reflection that he was si- 
multaneously annoying the Colonial Secretary. There were 
those also who deemed that Prince Bismarck enjoyed the 
thought that he was once more opening up the ancient 
chapter of accounts with England, which, notwithstanding 
all the recollections of 18 14-5, no German statesman has 
ever entirely forgotten in regard to the betrayal of Fred- 
erick the Great by Lord Bute in 1762, when the British 
Minister not only deserted his ally, but while the alliance 
still subsisted was believed to have revealed the plans of 
Frederick for the next campaign against France to Choiseul 
himself." 

In foreign affairs the devil is really just as black 
as he is painted; and the British devil is as black 
as the Continental devil. " Love your neighbour as 



70 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

yourself," was not a text to be found over the bed 
in the guest chambers at Downing Street, nor yet in 
the Continental chancelleries. Distrust, suspicion, 
intrigue, and bitter memories animated the vast ma- 
jority of men who were entrusted with the construc- 
tion of treaties, friendships, and alliances. Odo 
Russell wrote from Berlin in 1881 to Lord Gran- 
ville ; 

" For ten years have I preached confidence in Bismarck 
as a means of success in foreign policy, but in vain! I 
never could overcome the deep-rooted distrust his wish for 
a cordial understanding with England inspired at home." 

Bismarck himself found the want of consistency 
in the policy of successive British Cabinets a source 
of great vexation. In a letter he wrote in 1883 he 
complained of the " astounding policy of succeeding 
English Cabinets." In the same letter he said: 

" Assuming that the ambition of an English administra- 
tion in regard to Egypt were to overstep the limits which, 
in my opinion, a reasonable British policy ought to respect, 
we should not feel called upon to quarrel with England, 
even out of friendship for other Powers. . . . The greatest 
difficulty, however, we encounter, in trying to give a prac- 
tical expression to our sympathies for and our relations with 
England, is in the absolute impossibility of confidential in- 
tercourse in consequence of the indiscretion of English 
statesmen in their communications to Parliament, and in 
the absence of security in alliances for which the Crown 
is not answerable in England, but only the fleeting Cabi- 
nets of the day. It is therefore difficult to initiate a re- 
liable understanding with England otherwise than publicly 
and in the face of all Europe. Such public negotiations 
from their initiation, and even without arriving at any 
definitive result, would be highly detrimental to most of 



FOREIGN OFFICE IN THE '8o'S 71 

our European relations; but all these difficulties should not 
be allowed to stand in the way of our cordially entertaining 
any advances made to us, or to prevent us from cultivating 
the consolidation of our and Austria's friendship with Eng- 
land." 

A sidelight is thrown on our Foreign Office by 
Lord Acton, who in his letters to Mary Gladstone 
said : 

" Yes ! at last, foreign affairs are in a very wretched 
way, and are unjustly and unreasonably injuring Mr. Glad- 
stone's own position, xf Morier is still in England, I wish 
he could see him before Petersburg. He is our only strong 
diplomatist; but he is only strong. 

" You know that for all people not private friends of 

his own is disappointing. He is a bad listener, easily 

bored and distrustful of energetic men who make work for 
themselves and for the Foreign Office. Morier, in par- 
ticular, has force without tact, and stands ill with a chief 
who has tact without force." 

The work of the Foreign Office, In conjunction with 
similar departments abroad laid. In the eighties, 
the foundations of the vast scheme of armaments 
we have to carry to-day. It seemed then that the 
more we tried to preserve the peace the more strained 
foreign relations became. When we were not quar- 
relling with Germany, we were not on speaking terms 
with Russia; when we were not colonizing African 
deserts, to use Mr. Chamberlain's phrase, we were 
fighting the battles of the Ameer. There were bit- 
ter attacks and votes of censure In the House of 
Commons, but for the most part on strictly party 
lines; the Opposition dearly desiring for themselves 
an opportunity of keeping up the grand tradition of 



72 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

the Foreign Office. In 1886 the following resolu- 
tion was moved : 

" That in the opinion of this House it is not just or ex- 
pedient to embark in war, contract engagements involving 
grave responsibilities for the nation, and add territories to 
the Empire, without the knowledge and consent of Parlia- 
ment." 

It was lost by only four votes. It was opposed 
by Mr. Gladstone, though he did not attempt to de- 
fend the Foreign Office system as an ideal one. 

We now enter upon the period when the rise in 
expenditure on armaments must be traced very 
closely. Beginning just after the policy of " Col- 
onies for Germany" became popular, in 1887, the 
figures for naval expenditure of Britain, France, 
Russia, and Germany were as follows; Britain 
£12,375,000, France £8,452,000, Russia, £4,352,- 
000, and Germany £4,179,000. In 1892 the 
French fleet visited Kronstadt, and in 1893 the Rus- 
sian fleet visited Toulon. Wild demonstrations took 
place on both occasions. Germany was not de- 
lighted with the sentiments expressed by the orators 
at the dinners given to the officers of the dual navies. 
The French shouted, " Long live Russia," and the 
Russians shouted, " Long live France." The peace 
of Europe was the only aim of the demonstrators at 
these feasts. At a dinner given at the Elysees Pal- 
ace, the Russian ambassador said: 

" Before drinking a toast to which will respond from 
the depths of their hearts, not only those who are within 
these walls, but even those — and, that, too, with equal 
force — whose hearts near by and far away, at all the points 
of great, fair France, as also in all Russia, at the present 



COMPARATIVE FIGURES 73 

moment are beating in unison with ours, — permit me to 
offer — " and so on and so on, " the true significance of the 
magnificent peaceful festivities, etc., etc." 

Czar, and President, and ambassadors, and 
bishops, etc., etc., all united in glorifying the " peace- 
ful festivities." Naval demonstrations have no 
other object! Anyway, Germany did not rejoice. 
The figures for naval expenditure for the Entente 
Powers and Germany in 1897 were as follows: 
Britain £21,972,000, France £10,444,000, Russia 
£6,239,000, and Germany £6,467,000. These are 
an enormous increase for peace establishments I 
Russia and France combined spent that year over 
£10,000,000 more than Germany. When it is as- 
sumed by politicians and journalists that Germany is 
to blame for all the vast millions spent on navies in 
recent years, it would be just as well if it were 
shown when and how Germany led the way. One 
writer on naval affairs, whose articles occupy much 
space in the monthly reviews, stated recently that 
Germany began the armament race at the time of the 
Boer War. There is no evidence of this In the fig- 
ures of expenditure; and to these we must look, no 
matter what the Kaiser said in his speeches at that 
time. 

Let us begin with the year before the war In 
South Africa broke out. In 1898 Britain spent £25,- 
674,000, and Germany spent £5,972,000; a differ- 
ence of less than £20,000,000. After all the agita- 
tion In Germany for a colonial policy, there was no 
great expansion in fleet building. Indeed the 
Franco-Russian celebrations at Kronstadt and Tou- 
lon fell within a period when Germany pushed ahead 
in naval affairs. From 1892-3 the actions of 



74 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

France and Russia must not be left out of account 
in tracing the growth of Germany's navy. It has 
been the poHcy of British Governments and the 
press to concentrate attention on Germany and 
Britain alone, as if Germany had no other consid- 
eration than naval expansion solely against England. 
Now at the close of the Boer War, in 1904, Britain 
spent £42,431,000 and Germany spent £1 1,659,000; 
a difference of over £30,000,000. In 1904 our ex- 
penditure on the navy was equal to a four or five 
Power standard. Germany then spent less than 
France or Russia. The figures for 1904 are in- 
structive: France £12,517,143, Russia £12,072,- 
381, and, as Germany had to reckon with both coun- 
tries since the " peace festivities," no one can say 
her naval expenditure was more of a menace to the 
peace of Europe than that of France and Russia. If 
we take the years 1890 and 1901 and compare the 
figures of France and Russia with those of Germany 
we shall see how " peace festivities " conduce to fleet 
building. 

France Russia Germany 

1890 £ 8,060,000 £ 4,360,000 £ 4,938,000 

1901 £13,107,701 £11,659,766 £9,624,956 

France and Russia were spending against Ger- 
many at the rate of a two and a half Power stand- 
ard. The British Government and a certain well- 
informed section of the press knew that, but it was 
not the game to give the show away. Admiral von 
Tirpitz, speaking in the Reichstag, in 1900, said: 

" We should be in a position to blockade the Russian 
fleet in the Baltic ports, and to prevent at the same time 



DIPLOMATIC HUCKSTERING 75 

the entrance to that sea of a French fleet. We must also 
protect our ports in the North Sea from blockade." 

Well might the Admiral of the German navy set 
industriously about the business of preparing to meet 
his *' peaceful " neighbours. He perhaps had his eye 
on M. Delcasse, who had great ambitions for France 
In Morocco. It Is nauseating to think of all the In- 
trigue, the chicanery, and the lying, that were ex- 
pended over the Moroccan affair, and to read it 
again at this time Is enough to fill one with the de- 
sire of Carlyle's friend to place a live coal under 
the Foreign Office, and all such departments wher- 
ever found. To think of our claim to uphold the 
Integrity and independence of Belgium, after the 
Lansdowne-Grey trafficklngs with France and Spain 
in connection with Morocco, is extremely humiliat- 
ing. A Government pledged to uphold the Integ- 
rity and neutrality of a territory, which, behind the 
back of men representing nations determined to carry 
out that policy, makes secret arrangements to allow 
that territory to be partitioned, is not morally in a 
position to uphold the independence and integrity 
of a South Sea Island. It is a revolting page in the 
history of diplomacy that records the secret negotia- 
tions affecting Morocco. In Morocco in Diplomacy, 
Mr. Morel says: 

" France had in 1901 and 1902 publicly assured Mo- 
rocco upon repeated occasions that she had not the least 
intention of threatening the independence or the integrity 
of that state. France had formally and publicly declared 
in an agreement with Great Britain that she had no inten- 
tion of altering the political status of Morocco. France 
and Spain had formally and publicly declared their firm at- 
tachment to the independence and integrity of Morocco. 



76 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

France and Spain, and, by implication, Great Britain, were, 
therefore, publicly pledged towards Morocco and towards 
the world at large to maintain the integrity and independ- 
ence of Morocco. In point of fact, France, Spain, and 
Britain had privately entered into contracts with one an- 
other whereby the destruction of the independence and in- 
tegrity of Morocco was decreed, the date of the event to 
depend upon circumstances." 

To bargain away Moroccan independence and In- 
tegrity for one or two paltry advantages gained 
from France in the Mediterranean was an act of 
treachery. 

The Agreement between France and Britain re- 
specting Egypt and Morocco was signed April 8th, 
1904. Our relations with Germany at that time 
may be Inferred from the following excerpt from 
an Interview, published In the Nineteenth Century 
Review, with Count von Biilow, the German Chan- 
cellor : 

" I cannot conceive that the idea of an Anglo-German 
war should be seriously entertained by sensible people in 
either country. If they will coolly consider the enormous 
damage which even the most successful war of this char- 
acter would work upon their own country, and when they 
reckon it out it will be found that the stake is much too 
high in view of the certain loss. For this reason, I, for. my 
part, do not take the hostility of a section of the English 
press too tragically. I hope that the destinies of the two 
countries will always be determined by those cool heads 
who know that the best advantage of Germany and Eng- 
land will be served not only for the present, but for all 
future time so far as it is discernible to the human eye — 
by the maintenance of the present pacific relations." 

The North German Gazette In March, 1904, 



A SCARE MADE TO ORDER 77 

said, " so far as can be gathered at the moment," 
German interests in Morocco were not in danger, 
as France had repeatedly stated that " neither the 
conquest nor occupation " of Morocco was contem- 
plated. M. Delcasse assured the German ambassa- 
dor at Paris that it was the wish of France " to up- 
hold in Morocco the existing political and terri- 
torial status." Four days after Britain and France 
signed the secret articles attached to the public dec- 
laration, the German Chancellor said in the Reichs- 
tag that he had not been notified of the declaration, 
but he saw no reason to believe that it was directed 
against Germany: 

"We are interested in that country (Morocco), as, 
moreover, in the rest of the Mediterranean, principally 
from the economic standpoint. Our interests therein are, 
before all, commercial interests; also are we specially inter- 
ested that calm and order should prevail in Morocco. We 
must protect our commercial interests in Morocco and we 
shall protect them. We have no reason to fear that they 
will be set aside or infringed by any Power." 

So honest men generally believed; and indeed all 
through the rest of that year, millions of British- 
ers, Frenchmen, Spaniards and Germans, were ut- 
terly ignorant of the secret articles. These were 
not made known to the world until the Paris papers 
got hold of them and published them in November, 
191 1. In the early spring of 1905, the Emperor of 
Germany paid a visit to Tangier. If he had 
strangled Charon and invaded the dim plains of 
Helusion there could not have been a greater out- 
cry in Christian Britain. Many journalists, ignorant 
of the secret articles, imagined the Emperor's visit 



78 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

was " a blow on the heart " of Britain because of 
the Anglo-French Entente. The British press 
screamed at Germany, and the German press 
screamed at Britain. It was a dirty campaign con- 
doned by the Foreign Office; some said, inspired by 
the Foreign Office. Anyway, it is only necessary to 
raise the landmarks here so that we may the better 
understand why naval expenditure rose to gigantic 
proportions in the ensuing years. Still, the words 
of a French Senator might be quoted, to indicate 
the opinion of an honest man as to the public and 
secret policies of the Anglo-French Agreement. 
Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, in February, 
19 1 2, said: 

" The French Parliament, by an abuse morally, if not 
constitutionally, unpardonably was kept in ignorance of 
this policy. . . . Far from ensuring general peace, the ar- 
rangements of 1904 tended to compromise it. . . . Why 
was the French Parliament told only half the truth when 
it was asked to pass its opinion upon our arrangement with 
England? Why was it allowed to suspect that this ar- 
rangement had as its complement and corrective some secret 
clauses and other secret treaties? It is this, it is this double 
game towards Parliament and towards the world which 
becomes morally an abuse of trust. . . . Now the whole 
effort of the arrangement of 1904 appears to-day in its 
truth and in its vanity. It was a Treaty of friendship with 
England recognizing the freedom of our political action in 
Morocco and also proclaiming our will to respect the integ- 
rity of that country; that was what the public knew and 
approved. But the public was ignorant that at the same 
time, by other Treaties and by contradictory clauses hidden 
from it, the partition of Morocco between Spain and 
France was prepared, of that Morocco of which we guar- 
anteed the integrity. There existed two irreconcilable 



GERMANY LEFT OUT 79 

French policies in Morocco: that of the public arrange- 
ments, that is to say, a policy of integrity which was not the 
true one ; and that of secret arrangements postulating a Pro- 
tectorate and the partition of Morocco." 

The reason the Emperor visited Tangier must 
be clear to any honest business man. The German 
Foreign Office had been deceived. The Under-Sec- 
retary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Percy, said in the 
House of Commons, in April, 1905, that the Ger- 
man Government was not officially notified as to the 
Anglo-French Agreement having any reference to 
Morocco. France should have communicated it to 
Germany but she failed to do so. Germany was ig- 
nored. 

Only a year before Lord Lansdowne left the For- 
eign Office he spoke at the Guildhall, and no doubt 
thought the Agreement he had made with France 
would help to keep the peace of Europe. After 
quoting from the American Secretary of State, Mr. 
Hay, that " war is the most ferocious and the most 
futile of human follies," he said: 

*' We can conceive no more terrible, no more life-long 
punishment, than that remorse that would be felt by any 
Minister who either from a fault of temper or from love 
of a passing popularity, or because they were unable to put 
themselves in the place of their opponents, brought upon 
the country the scourge of a needless war." 

Yes, but the trouble is, that the work of the For- 
eign Office is usually done by men of long lineage 
and short vision. He hoped that something might 
be done " to give a stimulus to the existing desire 
for the discovery of some less clumsy and brutal 



8o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

method of adjusting international disputes." Cer- 
tainly not by making secret treaties! 

Peace advocates all over the world believed when 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman took office that a 
new era had opened. Arbitration-men, disarma- 
ment-men, non-resistance men, thought this leader of 
the Liberal party would bring Britain into the prom- 
ised land where brotherhood was something more 
than an abstraction. From Liberal platforms all 
over the country during the general election of 1906 
audiences heard the gospel of peace and good-will 
among nations preached by thousands of orators. 
The new Prime Minister led the way at the Albert 
Hall, in December, 1905, when he said: 

" It is vain, it is vain, to seek peace if you do not also 
ensue it. I hold that the growth of armaments is a great 
danger to the peace of the world. A policy of huge arma- 
ments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that 
force is the best, if not the only, solution of international 
differences. It is a policy that tends to inflame old sores 
and to create new 'sores. And I submit to you that as the 
principle of peaceful arbitration gains ground it becom.es one 
of the highest tasks of a statesman to adjust those arma- 
ments to the newer and happier condition of things. What 
nobler role could this great country assume than at the 
fitting moment to place itself at the head of the league of 
peace, through whose instrumentality this great work could 
be effected." 

Fine sentiments those, for a new government. 
After fourteen wars in a period of ten years even 
some Jingoes felt the time had come for a lower 
income-tax. Millions spent on Mad Mullahs, cam- 
paigns in India, expeditions to Tibet, Boxer feuds, 
and chastising Kruger for not giving the vote to 



LORD ROSEBERY'S COMPLAINT 8i 

men In the Transvaal who in most cases would not 
have one at home, — these things had stimulated a 
spirit of arbitration in many an imperialist breast. 
Even Mr. Balfour was inclined to turn over a new 
leaf. He said: 

" In future we shall not see wars, unless, indeed, we can 
conceive that either a nation or a ruler should arise who 
feel that they cannot carry out their schemes of aggrandize- 
ment except by trampling upon the rights of their neigh- 
bours. I see no prospect of any such calamity in Europe. 
It would indeed be a tragic reversion to ancient days if 
Europe had again to make a coalition against any too am- 
bitious Power." 

After that great utterance a few words on the se- 
cret articles of the Anglo-French Agreement might 
have aroused a very notable amount of interest. 

It was Lord Rosebery, however, who touched di- 
rectly on the question which concerns us now. He 
had upset a good many people in June, 1904, by de- 
nouncing the Anglo-French Agreement. Whether 
or not he knew anything about the secret articles, he 
said it was the most " onesided agreement ever con- 
cluded between two Powers at peace with each 
other," and added his hopes " that the Power which 
holds Gibraltar may never have cause to regret hav- 
ing handed Morocco over to a great military Power." 
In October, 1905, he said: 

" I cannot understand why friendship with France would 
involve such violent polemics with Germany as now rage 
between the two countries, and which I do not believe rep- 
resent the real feelings of the two nations, though they 
may represent the feelings of some or all of their Govern- 
ments; of that I know nothing; but I do view those 



82 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

polemics as a serious danger to peace, as poisonously influ- 
encing the two nations, and the growing generations of the 
two nations; and, therefore, I am one of those who depre- 
cate most sincerely the view which appears to prevail in 
some quarters, that cordial relations with France mean ir- 
reconcilable animosity to Germany. Remember, that these 
are not solitary matters with which we are dealing. Those 
great nations represent millions of men, huge fleets, also 
prepared for war, that in some day when it is least expected, 
the feelings of a nation may become so exasperated that the 
guns, as was said on another occasion, may almost go off 
by themselves; and therefore, I beg of you carefully to 
think of the heavy responsibility that weighs on you and 
your representatives with regard to foreign affairs." 

Only a few days before Lord Rosebery warned 
the country of the dangers which beset a foreign pol- 
icy that breeds violent polemics between a Power 
with whom we had entered into friendly and secret 
compacts, and one that felt aggrieved by our want 
of diplomatic courtesy, Sir Edward Grey spoke on 
the question of alliances: 

" People do say with perfect truth, that any question of 
entering into a definite alliance with regard to future con- 
tingencies with any Power whatever is one which should 
be carefully guarded and watched. An alliance which ap- 
pears a source of strength to-day might, under some future 
conditions, become a matter of embarrassment; and, were 
the policy of alliances rashly entered upon, I quite admit 
that there would be a danger that this country might be 
led into undesirable entanglements. That, I think, is per- 
fectly true; and all that should be borne in mind whenever 
it is a question of contracting any new alliance with a for- 
eign power." 

It is hard to believe these were the words of a 
man who in a few months would consent to the pro- 



WHY KEEP US IN DARKNESS? 83 

posal from the French Government that conversa- 
tions between British and French military and naval 
experts should take place. What might England, 
and poor broken, crushed, outraged Belgium, to say 
nothing of France, have been spared if the advice 
laid down by himself had only been followed! If 
we had not been led into undesirable entanglements 
what slaughter would have been avoided! Or if all 
the philosophies and systems discovered since the be- 
ginning of this war had been known to the journal- 
ists and statesmen who have told us, when it is too 
late, what they ought to have known before Liege 
and Louvain! How misled in foreign affairs we 
have been ever since 1904! It is perfectly amaz- 
ing now to read column after column in Liberal 
newspapers of but a year or two ago telling us to 
cultivate friendship with Germans; to find Minister's 
speeches interspersed with expressions of admiration 
for German culture and town-planning; — while all 
the time, they, as keepers of the British conscience, 
should have known that " Germans were only schem- 
ing to destroy us." Treitschke, Bernhardi and 
Nietzsche were not authors black-listed by the care- 
takers of municipal libraries, or placed on the list 
of forbidden books by the Home Office. Some peo- 
ple, indeed, found it much easier to get the works of 
these authors than to get information of secret trea- 
ties and understandings from the Government. 
Surely when Lord Haldane was at the War Office 
the Secret Service Department notified him of the 
existence of all these poisonous authors. Could 
Lord Rosebery have imagined, when he referred to 
the violent polemics of 1905, that all the journalists 
were thoroughly well-informed as to the real rea- 



84 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

sons why we should be at daggers drawn with Ger- 
many? It was not always thus. Indeed there was 
a time when Liberal statesmen and journalists took 
offence at vulgar abuse of Germans. When a Cabi- 
net Minister referred to Germany in a hostile way, 
or ventured to criticise the size of the silver used 
at banquets in Hades, indignant Liberals poured 
their censure on his head. Mr. Chamberlain, who 
in his latter days liked Germany's fiscal policy better 
than her foreign policy, once Incurred the displeasure 
of the present Foreign Secretary by referring to the 
length of the spoons guests should use when they 
sup with the Devil. Sir Edward Grey touched on 
that breach of table manners when he spoke on for- 
eign policy at Cheltenham in February, 1905 : 

" They would hear much of foreign policy, the parrot 
cry of Conservatives in distress. But when they talked 
of foreign policy, what policy did they mean? Was it the 
policy of the long spoon, or of the Triple Alliance of Great 
Britain, the United States, and Germany which Mr. Cham- 
berlain had been anxious to bring about, but which had been 
dropped because the countries chiefly concerned did not take 
kindly to the idea? Did they mean the foreign policy 
which had moved British ships out of Port Arthur to let the 
Russian ships in? It was well to remember history some- 
times, as they did not wish these things to be repeated." 

Excellent advice after the fact. It Is hard to find 
fault with the advice given to the electors before 
1906 by the Foreign Secretary. It is well to remem- 
ber history, difficult as that task seems to be for 
diplomatists. As to the Anglo-French Agreement, 
Sir Edward thought the spirit of It preferable to 
the letter. He admitted there had been diplomatic 
friction since the agreement had been made. He 



CARETAKERS 85 

also thought the policy of the Government of which 
Lord Lansdowne was Foreign Secretary had not 
been distinguished through all its years of office by 
consistency and continuity, — meaning continuity 
within limits, not in .the sense that Bergson or Sir 
Oliver Lodge would use the term. Continuity in 
foreign policy to the ideal diplomatic mind was es- 
sential for the maintenance of the Empire. It was, 
however, practised only between the declining 
months of one Government and the adolescent 
months of its successor. It is a term more honoured 
at St. Stephen's than at Downing Street. That the 
Government should truly represent the people was 
of paramount importance in directing continuity of 
foreign affairs. Mr. Asquith in August, 1905, be- 
fore he became Prime Minister dealt with this 
point: 

" When he was told that it was essential to our inter- 
ests as an Empire that the present Government, through 
Lord Lansdowne, should go on under existing conditions 
managing our foreign affairs, he pointed out that exactly 
the reverse was the case. They could not have a state of 
things more dangerous for the stable conduct of foreign 
relations and for the permanent arrangements of great and 
difficult questions with external Powers than one in which 
every foreign government knew perfectly well that it was 
dealing with caretakers, with persons who were only pro- 
visionally in power, and who had lost by a thousand manifest 
and indisputable signs the confidence of the very country 
in whose name they professed to speak." 

Representation here means that the Kingdom 
should be governed by a party that has lost no bye- 
elections. 

The Anglo-French Agreement was made in the 



86 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

last year of the Conservative reign, and the Anglo- 
Japanese Treaty was signed after the last session of 
that reign closed. Some Liberal statesmen regarded 
these treaties with favour, but there was one who 
did not see eye to eye with his political friends. As 
to the Anglo-French Agreement, Lord Rosebery was 
opposed to it from the first. In March, 1905, he 
said: 

" Let me take another agreement, as to which I am a 
well-known and conspicuous heretic, the Anglo-French 
Agreement. I am not going to say anything here about 
this which will make anybody's hair stand on end. I only 
wish to accentuate my own position in that matter, and to 
say that, while desiring as earnestly as any human being 
in these islands the inestimable boon of a good understand- 
ing with France, I have the deepest and most serious doubt 
as to the treaty by which that understanding was at- 
tained." 

Again in October, 1905, he referred to the agree- 
ment: 

" There is another agreement which the Government has 
concluded as to which there is a much more unanimous as- 
sent in this country, so far as I can gather — I mean the 
agreement with France. I myself am sworn down not to 
speak of that agreement. I am sorry to say that my 
prophecy as to the complications which must be the inevita- 
ble result has only been too abundantly fulfilled." 

One cannot help but wonder what Lord Rosebery 
would have said If he had known of the secret arti- 
cles attached to that agreement. Notwithstanding 
Mr. Asquith's statement as to the necessity of a gov- 
ernment dealing with foreign affairs truly represent- 
ing the people of Britain, Lord Percy, the Conserva- 



A NEW POLICY 87 

tive Under-Secretary, did not see how any one could 
for a moment doubt that the Liberal party would 
faithfully fulfil the obligations which the Government 
had already entered into with various countries, — 
particularly the spirit and the letter of the under- 
standing which they had made with France. 

In December, 1905, the King sent for Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman. He formed a ministry, and 
in the opening speech of the General Election, the 
new Prime Minister said: 

" As to our general policy to our neighbours, our general 
foreign policy, it will remain the same in Government as 
it was in Opposition. It will be opposed to aggression and 
to adventure, it will be animated by a desire to be on the 
best terms with all nationalities, and to co-operate with 
them in the common work of civilization. . . . We want 
relief from the pressure of excessive taxation, and at the 
same time we want money to meet our own domestic needs 
at home, which have been too long starved and neglected 
owing to the demands on the taxpayer for military pur- 
poses abroad. How are these desirable things to be se- 
cured if in the time of peace our armaments are maintained 
on a war footing? Remember that we are spending at 
this moment, I think, twice as much on the army and 
navy as we spent ten years ago." 

The new Prime Minister set to work at once to 
reduce expenditure on armaments, and in the first 
two years of office the naval estimates were reduced 
by over £2,000,000. Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
man died in April, 1908. Then in 1909 the esti- 
mates jumped up suddenly with an increase of 
£2,500,000. Since that year Britain has increased 
her expenditure on the navy from £36,059,652 to 
£52,261,703, while in the same period Germany 



88 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

raised her expenditure from £20,090,000 to £23,- 
284,531. 

In the Guildhall speech, of 1908, Mr. Asquith, 
Sir Henry's successor, said: 

" A variety of circumstances have recently caused the 
relations between Great Britain and Germany to become 
a subject of active public discussion. It is exactly a year 
since the German Emperor was the guest of your predeces- 
sor, my Lord Mayor, in this very hall. Some of us, and 
I was one, who were present on that occasion, cannot for- 
get His Majesty's emphatic and impressive declaration that 
the governing purpose of his policy was the preservation 
of the peace of Europe, and the maintenance of good rela- 
tions between our two countries. It is in the spirit of that 
declaration, the spirit which aims not only at peace, but at 
good will, that we desire to deal with other Powers, with 
Germany certainly not less than others." 

The potentate who in March, 1905, upset us so 
much by his visit to Tangier, and who was the sub- 
ject of many a journalistic atrocity for poking his 
nose into Moroccan affairs, was in a few short years 
the honoured guest of my Lord Mayor at the Guild- 
hall, the palace where gastronomies are practised only 
by the most respectable and cultured epicures to be 
found near London on the ninth of November. 
Poor Lord Mayor, little did he know that he took 
a viper to his bosom. For all he knew the Emperor 
might have had a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra 
secreted under his uniform. As a matter of course 
the Emperor's peaceful visit was followed speedily 
by a period of panic. There is nothing like em- 
phatic avowals of peace for unsettling Jingoes. Con- 
tinuity of foreign policy was again backed by con- 



BEATING THE TOM-TOM 89 

tinuity in naval policy. The reductions made under 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman did not suit the 
Whigs, who, at a loss for information as to what 
the German Emperor really meant by his cryptic 
announcement at the Guildhall, adopted the sugges- 
tion of an agent of the armament ring to start what 
might be called a " World Against Us " policy. 
True, we were on good terms with France and Rus- 
sia, and our relations with Germany, according to 
the Prime Minister and the German Emperor, were 
all for the preservation of the peace of Europe. So 
amicable were the relations between Britain and Ger- 
many, in 1908, when the naval estimates were in- 
troduced, that the First Lord of the Admiralty and 
the German Emperor exchanged letters of banter, 
as Lord Rosebery said of the incident. The two 
Governments without alliance, or treaty, or entente, 
or secret articles, were bound together in the spirit 
which aims only at peace. But Lord Cromer did 
not think so. Something alarmed him. In the 
House of Lords, in July, 1908, he said: 

" What I would ask, in the present condition of Europe, 
is the main duty which devolves on the Government of this 
country? For my own part, I have no sort of hesitation 
in replying to this question. Their main duty is to make 
provisions betimes for the European conflict which may not 
improbably be forced on us before many years have elapsed. 
I am aware that the mass of the people of this country, who 
do not follow foreign affairs with any very close attention, 
are not alive to the possibility of any such conflict taking 
place. I say it is the duty of a Government gifted with 
both patriotism and foresight, who have means of informa- 
tion at their disposal which is not available to the general 
public, to provide betimes for that danger — a danger of 



90 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

which I, in common, I believe, with most people who can 
speak with real authority on foreign affairs, am very firmly 
convinced." 

Germany was the country Lord Cromer had in 
mind; there was no other country in Europe that 
could directly force a European conflict on us. So 
all the fine statements of the Prime Minister and the 
sophistical utterances of the Foreign Secretary did 
not allay the agitations of those men who had 
" means of information " at their disposal. What 
information? That was the time when Mr. MuU- 
iner was busy finding men who would believe his 
yarns about German naval expansion. We shall 
deal later on with that " information." Anyway, 
Lord Cromer's statement was more than a warning; 
it was an indictment of the Foreign Office system. 
It was also a reflection on the Admiralty and the 
Government. If it meant anything at all it meant 
that a policy of secrecy, hyperbole, and evasion, en- 
abled the Foreign Secretary and the First Lord of 
the Admiralty to withhold from the House and the 
country the real state of affairs, and conceal from 
the people the nature of the information Lord 
Cromer, not a member of the Government, had In 
mind when he made his speech. 



CHAPTER V 

ENEMIES 

The people is a beast of muddy brain 
That knows not its own strength, and therefore stands 
Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands 
Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein ; 
One kick would be enough to break the chain. 
But the beast fears, and what the child demands 
It does; nor its own terror understands, 
Confused and stupified by bugbears vain. 
Most wonderful! With its own hand it ties 
And gags itself — gives itself death and war 
For pence doled out by kings from its own store. 
Its own are all things between earth and heaven; 
But this it knows not; and if one arise 
To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven. 
— Campanella, translated by John Addington Symonds. 

" I tell you : one must have chaos within to enable 
one to give birth to a dancing star." In the middle 
of the last century there was chaos within Germany, 
enough to give birth to Nietzsche. Schopenhauer 
the pessimist, Bismarck the imperialist, Strauss the ra- 
tionalist, Moltke the militarist, Lassalle the philo- 
sophical socialist, and Treitschke the absolutist — 
all, in their various directions, labouring in a Chris- 
tian country — the strife of the new against the old, 
the battle between evil and good — created the in- 
tellectual chaos from which the gentle, fastidious, re- 
tiring advocate of the superman burst out like a 

91 



92 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

dancing star. The Christian state which in its busi- 
ness from one year's end to another denied and even 
derided every one of the beatitudes of Jesus, was 
the field that awaited Nietzsche's work. Intellec- 
tual riot was fast overcoming Hegelianism and Lu- 
theranism; the period which must come under fun- 
damentally false conditions when the hypocrisy and 
cant of society are fiercely attacked by those who 
are bold enough to point out where life is not lived 
as life is preached, had about reached its meridian. 
Strong men had surveyed the field before Nietzsche; 
Marx had done something to prepare the ground; 
and earlier still. Max Stirner had put in the blade 
of his uprooting plough; Michael Bakunin also had 
left traces in Germany after the disturbances of 
1849. His pronouncement, " we object to all legis- 
lation, all authority, all influence, privilege, patented, 
oflScial and legal, even when it has proceeded from 
universal suffrage; convinced that it must always 
turn to the profit of a dominating and exploiting mi- 
nority, against the interests of the immense majority 
of the enslaved," found an echo in that sublime 
phrase of Nietzsche, " where the State ceaseth there 
beginneth that man who is not superfluous." 

Christianity had been on its trial, — the new 
" evil." Men were dissatisfied with the verdict 
" not proven," and spent their days in discovering 
fresh evidence against it. From the conflict of di- 
verse views in economics, religion, and politics, 
Nietzsche arose with his lonely David, not of Israel, 
but of Sahara. 

It was time for a new philosophy. Whether the 
philosophy of the superman will be of as much value 
to mankind as the disciples of Nietzsche believe, is 



WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT 93 

not of great consequence; because a world of in- 
tellectual supermen would be the one that Nietzsche 
of all men would not live in, even if the " much-too- 
many " had passed from the conditions which neces- 
sitated the invention of the State. An intellectual 
change would not alter the position of the superflu- 
ous man, nor make men practise what they preach. 
Yet it may be probable that no one saw so clearly 
the terrific force of Dostoevsky's Myshkin as Nietzs- 
che. Some one may some day take up the tangled 
skein of his thought and connect its strands with 
those of the men who influenced his work. 

His description of Europe in the years between 
i860 to 1880 will stand; from music to women, 
from philosophy to oratory, from alcohol to poli- 
tics, it will satisfy the most persistent investigator. 
Critic, iconoclast, and illuminator of society and sys- 
tems, he stands pre-eminent. He soars high in 
many respects above our own Carlyle whom he dis- 
liked so much. He thought he saw in Carlyle the 
lack of those fundamentals he despised. But in- 
tellectual and physical supermen without equal rights 
— not equality — will be dispensable giants under 
proper economic conditions; namely, when the su- 
perfluous man comes into his own. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, so it is reported, said that 
the German soldier goes to the front with a copy 
of Thus Spake Zarathustra in his knapsack. That is 
a pretty tall statement, but it is conceivable that many 
of the town-bred soldiers of Germany know some- 
thing of Nietzsche. The real influence of Nietzsche 
has not, however, shown itself in any of the actions of 
the German people up to the present. They in no way 
appreciate his meaning of war — less indeed than 



94 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

English journalists. " I see many soldiers: would I 
could see many warriors ! ' Uniform ' they call 
what they wear: would It were not uniform what 
they hide under It! " Prussians have not the sense 
of humour to grasp all there Is In his Joyful Wisdom. 
This Is written with all respect for the great body 
of literary Britain who during the war have been 
Industriously picking the mote out of German eyes. 
There Is nothing even savouring of the Individualism 
of Nietzsche in German life. Even Richard Strauss 
in his tone-poem caricatures the superman; though 
he has made an attempt recently to approach Diony- 
sus. The largest political body in Germany is so- 
cialistic — anathema to Nietzsche, the Government 
is bureaucratic ! — Invented for the much-too-many, 
and individualism cannot exist In an army or navy; 
as for the church, — well, as there has never been 
room In It for Jesus, It is not likely that any lowlier 
individualist may attempt to declare from Its pulpits 
that '' the Kingdom of God is within you.'' 

There are so many diverse notions of Individual- 
ism that It may be opportune to ask, What Is the in- 
dividualism of Nietzsche? True Individualism it is 
not, for It is without economic foundation. His 
wlU-to-life-power does not go deep enough; It lacks 
a subsistence-basis — hence, perhaps, his notion of 
slaves. It is exceedingly difficult to place a funda- 
mental value on the individualism of Nietzsche for 
he so often confuses man and nature, and the func- 
tions of both. Delve into his philosophy as deeply 
as you will, on this matter astounding contradictions 
abound; he Is so full of multitudes, as Whitman 
would say. Then in the search for fundamentals, 



MEANING OF " EXPLOITATION " 95 

Dionysus appears so often perhaps to mock our ex- 
ertions. Take the passage : 

"'Exploitation' does not belong to a depraved, or im- 
perfect, or primitive society: it belongs to the Nature of the 
living being as a primary organic function; it is a conse- 
quence of the intrinsic Will to Power which is precisely the 
will to life. Granting that as a theory this is a novelty — 
as a reality it is a fundamental fact of all history : let us be 
so far honest to ourselves ! " 

Nietzsche here assumes he is propounding some- 
thing new, something he has discovered as a funda- 
mental fact, but the word "exploitation" has old 
and new meanings. If the sentence is to be applied 
to man's right to exploit equally with other men all 
natural resources, then the statement is compatible 
with true Individualism. But, if, on the other hand, 
the statement and the use of the word " exploita- 
tion," are to be applied to some men's power to ex- 
ploit the labour of other men, then it refers to our 
old enemy Monopoly, and is no new theory or fun- 
damental fact. The context from which the state- 
ment is torn refers to individuals; but "exploita- 
tion " belonging " to the Nature of the living being 
as a primary organic function," is a phrase which 
carries the understanding back to man's struggle 
with Nature for subsistence, and the fundamental 
basis of equal rights to exploit the earth for the 
satisfaction of his desires and needs. Who can tell 
us just where Nietzsche stood on this question? 
Georg Brandes? Perhaps! Certainly he saw 
clearly the basic fault in the contentions of Marx and 
Lassalle. 



96 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Yet, it would not be strange if this hater of every- 
thing German was, at this time, shaping in the minds 
of German soldiers tendencies against established 
forms in the Fatherland, more dangerous than all 
the armaments of the Allies and their millions of 
men battling east and west. If they have got hold 
of the true Nietzsche, the Nietzsche who saw that 
" Europe wishes to be one " — then it is probable 
that Germans may now be in the throes of a vast in- 
tellectual upheaval. 

Though he strikes without mercy at the God made 
by man, the vain, malicious, vindictive God of a 
Christianity which is all that Jesus was not, Nietzs- 
che never assails the religious man: " rare one, sol- 
itary soul! " he would say of him. God is associ- 
ated with Christianity — " invented by Jews," — 
churches, rituals, etc. Passages in Sanctus Janua- 
rius reek with scorn of a man-made God. The gulf 
that lies between Jesus and Nietzsche is not 
wide; his appreciation of Dostoevsky is the finger- 
post which points that way; but the gulf that yawns 
between Nietzsche and Christianity, as he sees it, 
cannot be spanned. 

Whether Germans know the elusive, inspiring, 
nimble, attractive Nietzsche or no, a people who 
have a literature so rich in wondrous contradictions 
are a people whom the world must reckon with, for 
they are capable of great revolutions, unless an ori- 
ental sickness fall upon their Intelligence. Through 
Nietzsche back to Novalis, — for these two sickly 
ones touched at many points. Both in different gen- 
erations explored many of the bye-ways of intellec- 
tual life. Like Walt Whitman, Nietzsche perhaps 
saw tokens at the wayside. 



MILITANT CHRISTIANITY 97 

" I wonder where I get those tokens, 

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop 
them?" 

Back to Novalis ! Well, we shall see. Anyway, 
no thinker who brings the future into his hour of 
meditation need be afraid of Nietzsche. Truth was 
evil long before he wrote. A list of " evil " men 
would take us back to Newton, to Galileo, to Jesus. 
Truth is always " evil " when it falls upon estab- 
lished forms. 

How has it been with us? The antipathy to Ger- 
many, since the Kruger telegram and Mr. Chamber- 
lain's speech, delivered in the early days of the Boer 
War, increased in venom and bitterness. From 
1905 there has been a campaign unremitting in its 
hatred, though at intervals checked by the very in- 
tensity of its spleen, — as a fit of coughing brought 
on by vociferous anger stops for a while the reviling 
of a virago, — that has on several occasions brought 
the two countries to the verge of hostilities. The 
crusade for a protective tariff, which began in 1902, 
taught the people a form of militant Christianity in 
commercial affairs which roused every brutish In- 
stinct and subjugated all the virtues of brotherhood. 
The catchwords of the propaganda were BIs- 
marcklan. Retaliation was one of the words to 
conjure with; and " Don't take It lying down! " was 
the phrase to stir lethargic audiences to demonstra- 
tions of vindictive joy. " Hit the foreigner back," 
and " Make the foreigner pay the tax," were ex- 
pressions which rung for three years from end to end 
of this Christian land. And everything made In 
Germany was, to a large section of the British peo- 



98 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

pie, worse than garments worn by lepers. All the 
platform changes were rung on the seven deadly 
sins, making virtues of them for the needs of Mr. 
Chamberlain's campaign. Cobden's platitudes were 
laughed to scorn: " Peace and good-will among na- 
tions " was the cry of Britain's worst enemies. 
Hundreds of thousands of working men and women 
were daily told that the hated foreigner took the 
bread out of the mouths of the children of British 
artisans. Ministers of the gospel frequently pre- 
sided over protectionist meetings while orators dis- 
coursed the most blatant rubbish a sensible, God- 
loving nation ever listened to. 

No Nietzschean gospel ever went so far In that re- 
spect. Bands of landlords and manufacturers con- 
nived at getting for their land and their wares from 
the millions, whose purchasing power was extremely 
low, more than they were worth in a free and open 
market. All the greed, envy, and enmity of com- 
mercialism were let loose in that campaign by the 
maker of the South African War, to cover up the 
misdeeds of the Government of which he was 
Colonial Secretary. Lord Hugh Cecil, in referring 
to the campaign, said, " Its methods were repulsive. 
They were the methods of dragooning." Britain 
might not have had her Treitschke, but she had her 
Chamberlain. The time was surely ripe for the 
advent of a British Nietzsche. Steadily the 
churches had been getting emptier and emptier; the 
divines screamed to the people to come and wor- 
ship God, but the people knew in a dumb, vague way 
they would not hear much about the All-Father even 
if they took the trouble to go. So they flocked to 
Brotherhood meetings of a strictly undenominational 



THE STATE OF THE POOR 99 

character; and those who liked not religious serv- 
ices of any kind thronged to the platform of the 
atheist or the rationalist in the parks; thousands of 
others preferring the public-house to the squalor of 
the homes they are now shedding their blood to de- 
fend. 

With the aristocratic class, what is popularly 
thought to be superman-philosophy was thought if 
it were not spoken. At the end of 1905, it would 
have been difficult for Diogenes to find a country 
under the sun where there was so deep a contempt 
for the poor and the meek held by the ruling class. 
Many British villages were not unlike slave com- 
pounds, and few were the men, who did not think 
politically as the squires thought, who dared to call 
their souls their own. Labourers in agriculture at 
any wage from twelve to sixteen shillings a week; 
miners living in hovels; railway porters at less than 
a pound a week; and cotton operatives packed into 
dull, drab streets of mean houses — these were some 
of the millions that were to breed a race of men 
whose destiny it would be to write on foreign bat- 
tlefields new pages on the might of Christian Britain 
to uphold justice and national righteousness. That 
was the condition of Britain after the close of the 
Boer War. 

During the Boer War It was the people who maf- 
ficked; since the beginning of this war sections of the 
press have mafficked; the people have been strangely 
circumspect. But a survey of the newspapers since 
the close of the Boer War reveals an almost unin- 
terrupted exhibition of repellent Jingoism in the col- 
umns of most of the London penny papers. In 
tracing the history of our press campaign against 



100 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Germany one has to go back to the time when the 
German Emperor cast anchor at Tangier; when the 
British pubhc, and perhaps the press, were ignorant 
of the secret articles to the Anglo-French Agree- 
ment. In that year there was a reduction of 
£3,500,000 in our navy estimates. This might have 
had something to do with the tremendous outburst 
in the press against the Emperor's visit to Morocco. 
Nevertheless, Jingo journalistic fury was of such a 
violent character that Lord Rosebery viewed the at- 
tack with grave apprehension. Even Mr. Brode- 
rick, who had been Secretary for War in a Con- 
servative Administration, was moved to remark: 

" There could be no personal feelings between the Gov- 
ernment of this country and Germany. He would go fur- 
ther and say, there was no outstanding question of any de- 
scription between the two governments, and that there was 
nothing that should raise animosity between them, and that 
there was nothing which stood between them and friend- 
ship. All the suggestions of misunderstandings might be 
put aside with those stories which had commended them- 
selves to some minds, of plans for an irruption of 100,000 
soldiers into Schleswig-Holstein, or of unexpected and en- 
tirely gratuitous attacks, which might serve to lubricate the 
pens of some pressmen, but which would get short shrift 
from any responsible statesmen." 

There was, however, more truth than journalism 
In the report about an invasion of Schleswig-Hol- 
stein. Responsible political leaders in France un- 
derstood that M. Delcasse told his friends that if 
Germany and France quarrelled, England was will- 
ing to mobilize her fleet, throw a force of 100,000 
men into Schleswig-Holstein, and seize the Kiel 
Canal. Neither remonstrance from von Biilow in 



THE YELLOW PRESS loi 

Berlin nor censure from our leaders stemmed the 
flow of ink. The French Agreement was made the 
bone of contention in the foreign press; in Austrian, 
Italian, and German journals it was taken as a 
menace to the Triple Alliance, and in the yellow 
press of those countries a bitter agitation against 
Britain was carried on. The jaundiced school of 
writers in this country sent their shameful screeds 
all over the land in superlative efforts to outdo the 
acrimonious stuff published abroad. Soon the na- 
tion, or that part of it which revels In horrors, de- 
voured the literature of carnage, and went to bed 
with a twelve-inch nightmare and woke to greet the 
columns of vindictive ravings from the pens of hire- 
lings of the armament-ring. How much of all the 
campaign was inspired by the British and French de- 
partments for Foreign Affairs will never be known; 
no, not any more than the millions of roubles spent 
by Russia in corrupting a section of the foreign press. 
Still we do know something of the part played in the 
degrading affair by M. Delcasse. His own coun- 
tryman, M. de Pressense, once Foreign Editor of 
Le Temps, wrote : 

" We know by what a series of faults an excellent situ- 
ation was compromised. M. Delcasse, inebriated by the 
entente with England, of which he had been but an elev- 
enth-hour artisan, hypnotized by the favour of the Czar, 
thought the hour had struck for heroic enterprises. He 
dreamed, if he did not conscientiously project, a sort of 
revanche by the humiliation of Germany." 

In Le Gaulois, July 12th, 1905, M. Delcasse, a 
short time after his downfall, said: 

" Of what importance would the young navy of Ger- 



102 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

many be in the event of war in which England, I tell you, 
would assuredly be with us against Germany? What 
would become of Germany's ports or her trade, or her 
mercantile marine? They would be annihilated. That is 
what would be the significance of the visit, prepared and 
calculated, of the British squadron to Brest, while the re- 
turn visit of the French squadron to Portsmouth will com- 
plete the demonstration. The entente between the two 
countries and the coalition of their navies, constitutes such 
a formidable machine of naval war that neither Germany, 
nor any other Power, would dare to face such an over- 
whelming force at sea." 

And this was the man who was Minister for For- 
eign Affairs in France when the Anglo-French 
Agreement with its secret articles was signed. Yet 
there are journalists in Britain who lead their read- 
ers to believe that they are informed as to foreign 
affairs, who charge Germany with having provoked 
the rise in naval expenditure ! The evidence is all 
the other way about. 

Every man who raised his voice in protest against 
the articles of the Blue-Funk school was assailed as 
a traitor or a coward. The men of the bulldog 
breed wrote from behind the screens of editorial 
rooms their prodigious fulminations on " Little Eng- 
enders " and Pro-Boers. From the dust-bins of 
the Admiralty and the War Office they gathered 
flotsam and jetsam, the gossip of disappointed half- 
pay officers and clerks, often enough the rejected in- 
formation of servitors not required again. 

Mr. Bryce, in October, 1905, pointed to the dan- 
ger of the press campaign: 

" Press reports, press attacks, tend to inflame and irritate 
men's minds. When you are told day after day that some 



DISCREDITABLE JOURNALISM 103 

one is hating you and watching his chance to attack you, 
you may begin to hate him, and put the worst construction 
on innocent acts. Harm has already been done which may 
take some time to remove." 

Mr. Morley dealt with the same problem in his 
speech at Arbroath, about the same time Mr. Bryce 
spoke. Mr. Morley said : 

" (Foreign Affairs) are the most obscure, the most deli- 
cate, the most complex, the gravest province of public busi- 
ness, and yet, oddly enough, this grave, obscure, delicate 
province is a free field, where people find it most easy to 
be, if you pardon the word, cocksure, where they think it is 
most appropriate to fly into a passion, and to use the worst 
language either about foreign nations or about those of 
their fellow-countrymen who do not happen to agree with 
them." 

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Sir Edward 
Grey also laid stress in their speeches on the neces- 
sity of responsible politicians doing something to 
heal the breach made by Jingo journalists between 
Great Britain and Germany. 

Three months after the General Election the yel- 
low press got down to work in real earnest. One 
paper told its readers that " there never was a Radi- 
cal Government that was able to make itself re- 
spected abroad, and under the new regime at West- 
minster, British support of France will be worth pre- 
cious little. And with the defeat of France, British 
prestige must inevitably suffer; but this Is no more 
than might be expected." The press attack was 
marvellously effective. Under Mr. Haldane the 
Expeditionary Force was reorganized, on a mobi- 
lization basis, for service abroad, to comprise 150,- 
000 men. In criticising the Haldane scheme, Ldrd 



104 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Roberts, in the House of Lords, fanned the flames 
of Jingo feehng in the country, and incidentally gave 
the yellow press scribes some material for future ar- 
ticles : 

" If we were required to deal with ' a Continental situa- 
tion ' a striking force of much greater strength than 150,- 
000 men would, in my humble opinion, be needed, if not 
at the very outset, long before any large number of rein- 
forcements could be trained. We would under these cir- 
cumstances be fighting against a most carefully organized 
army between two and three millions strong, and thoroughly 
fitted in all respects for war, the commanders of which 
would be fully cognizant of our unpreparedness and would 
give us as little breathing time as possible. I doubt whether 
it is realized in this country that the Continental armies, 
behind their vast mobilized strength, possess practically un- 
limited reserves. In Germany, for instance, though it is 
usually supposed that only about five million men would 
be subject to the extreme demand of the State, there are 
altogether actually no less than ten million men over fight- 
ing age who have passed through the ranks at one period 
or another." 

Alarmists generally fastened on to this statement 
and pushed it for all it was worth. Lord Halsbury 
went so far as to say : 

" As for Mr. Haldane, his profession of economy, com- 
bined with neglect of the military opinion of Earl Roberts 
and other experts, afforded a serious temptation to hostile 
countries to seek the first opportunity to humiliate and 
attack us." 

In the autumn of 1906 a section of the Tory press 
did its best to whip up a navy scare because the Gov- 
ernment reduced the estimates. " Patriotism is 
thrown to the winds," screamed the Daily Mail. 



THE PREMIER'S ATTITUDE 105 

The scares promoted by the yellow press, and the 
bitter attacks on our Teutonic neighbour affected the 
disposition of Germany towards the Hague conven- 
tion, Mr. Balfour did not hesitate to say that Sir 
Henry Campbell-Bannerman's attitude was hypo- 
critical, Inasmuch as he took credit for strengthen- 
ing the army and the navy while he attended the 
Hague peace meetings for disarmament. The 
Prime Minister told his audience at Manchester that 
" he knew that we have been suspected of a wish, 
a sinister wish, to embarrass Germany by raising the 
question." In explaining the situation he said: 

" We thought it our duty to seize the opportunity which 
the Hague Conference offered for seeing whether a step 
might not be taken in the right direction for reducing arma- 
ments. I think we were right. . . . The German Govern- 
ment appears to believe that such a method is idle and il- 
lusory and, as they hold they can have no share in it, I 
recognize and respect the candour with which Prince Biilow 
has decided to stand aside from the discussion altogether." 

The scaremongers kept up the attack. It was 
suggested that " the Government had wrecked the 
army and were now trying to wreck the navy." The 
statements of the panicmongers however reached 
such a limit that a Tory paper, In an article from a 
well-Informed correspondent on naval affairs, said : 

" The nation is in no danger whatever from the navies 
of Continental Powers. ... Notwithstanding the volume 
and energy of attacks on the Admiralty, it is significant that 
neither in the House of Commons nor in the House of 
Lords has a single division been taken on any one of the 
questions at issue. This proves that either the Unionist Op- 
position is indifferent to or ignorant of the country's impend- 
ing fate, or that the campaign against the Admiralty is the 



io6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

work of windbags whose puncture and perforation by facts 
will be followed by deflation." 

The position of our navy with those of Germany, 
France, and Russia was as follows: 

Great Britain Germany, France, and Russia. 
1,132,205 tons. 1,108,280 tons. 

Britain exceeded the tonnage of the next three 
Powers by 23,925 tons. 

Let us review the march of events. The Lans- 
downe-Delcasse public and secret agreements about 
Morocco were signed in April, 1904. Neither 
Britain nor France notified Germany of the public 
agreement. The secret agreement meant that 
France, Spain, and Britain had contracted to violate 
the integrity and independence of Morocco. In 
March, 1905, the German Emperor visited Tan- 
gier with the object of safeguarding " efficaciously 
the interests of Germany in Morocco," to use his 
own words in his address to the Sultan's representa- 
tives. Then followed the war in the British and 
Continental press. But the secret articles were not 
made known until six years after the visit that caused 
the sensation in Britain and France. In January, 
1906, Sir Edward Grey agreed with the French 
Government that conversations should take place be- 
tween British and French military and naval experts. 
In the autumn of 1905, M. Delcasse was forced to 
resign his portfolio, and Le Matin published the 
story of Britain's willingness to send a force in sup- 
port of France Into Schleswig-Holstein. In April, 
1906, the Belgian and British military authorities In 
Brussels entered Into arrangements for the co-opera- 



A DISHONEST PRETEXT 107 

tion of a British Expeditionary Force of 150,000, 
with the Belgian army against Germany. Mr. Hal- 
dane announced In the following month of July that 
the force had been reorganized on a mobilization 
basis of 150,000. The Act of Algeclras was signed 
April 7th, 1906, sandwiched between the consent 
given by Sir Edward Grey to the British and French 
military and naval conversations, and the Brussels 
arrangement for Belgian and British military co- 
operation In the event of a war with Germany. 
These are the facts which cannot be denied by honest 
men. It may of course be necessary, playing the 
game of the chancelleries, for diplomatists and gov- 
ernments to deny some of these facts; but It takes 
only the very smallest experience to know what the 
denials of Ministers are worth. 

The murder of the Austrian archduke, whether he 
was murdered by Russia, or Serbia, or Vienna, had 
little or nothing to do with this present war. It 
might have been a pretext for bringing things to a 
head, but to say It was the Initial cause of the war is 
the most unprincipled falsehood a Jingo journal ever 
Indulged In. This war had long beginnings; they 
lay in the " pathos of distance " as Nietzsche would 
say. Not the violation of the Integrity and Inde- 
pendence of Belgium, but the violation of the in- 
tegrity and Independence of Morocco. Not the an- 
tique treaty of 1839, but the secret articles which ac- 
companied the Agreement of 1904, — which were not 
made known to the world until November, 191 1, 
wherein Spain, France, and Britain had contracted 
for the partition of Morocco. 

The scaremongers In the summer of 1908 held 
high carnival ; the Daily Telegraph spread the legend 



io8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

that the Government intended to float a loan of 
£100,000,000, so that we might be able to build a 
navy large enough to deal with Germany. Early in 
the New Year there was a great deal of electricity 
in the diplomatic air. Austria publicly accused 
Britain of a policy of deliberate malevolence. Sir 
Edward Grey repudiated the allegations and said 
they were sheer inventions. But neither the Foreign 
Secretary's protest nor the assurances of other Min- 
isters as to the pacific intentions of the Government, 
seemed to allay the anxiety of Continental Powers or 
the perturbations of the alarmists at home. 

On August 14th, 1908, Mr. Churchill, at Swansea, 
delivered a remarkable speech on our relations with 
Germany. This speech should be preserved, for 
there is a passage in it that makes strange reading 
now, when nearly the whole of the British press, day 
after day, tells us that the German people are a bru- 
■tish race, trained by Sybel, Treitschke, and Bern- 
hardi. When the war is over, diplomatic relations 
will be resumed; trade will spring up again between 
the two peoples; and a memory of what some men in 
the days before the actual strife have said of Ger- 
rnany and the German people, may be useful in estab- 
lishing once more those relations which true Chris- 
tian people may aspire to but never quite enjoy. 
The speech to be quoted from, and no apology is 
thought necessary for the length of the extract, was 
delivered only a few weeks after Lord Cromer, in 
the House of Lords, spoke of a European conflict 
which might be forced upon us before many years. 
Mr. Churchill said: 

" I think it is greatly to be deprecated that persons 
should try to spread the belief in this country that war 



FOOD FOR REFLECTION 109 

between Great Britain and Germany is inevitable. It is 
all nonsense. In the first place, the alarmists have no 
grounds whatever for their panic or fear. . . . Look at it 
from any point of view you like, and I say you will come 
to the conclusion in regard to the relations between Eng- 
land and Germany that there is no real cause of difference 
between them, and although there may be snapping and 
snarling in the newspapers, and in the London clubs, those 
two great people have nothing to fight about, have no prize 
to fight for, and have no place to fight in. . . . 

" What does all this snapping and snarling amount to 
after all? How many people do you suppose there are in 
Germany who really want to make a murderous attack on 
this country? I do not suppose in the whole of that great 
population of fifty or sixty millions of inhabitants there are 
ten thousand persons who would seriously contemplate such 
a hellish and wicked crime; and how many do you think 
there are in this country? I do not believe there are even 
that number to be found in our country. . . . But even if 
the fifteen thousand persons whom we will say in Germany 
and this country desire to make war on one another were 
as influential as one would think from the noise they make 
and the clatter they keep up, what about the rest of us? 
What about the one hundred millions of people who dwell 
in these islands and Germany? Are we all such sheep? 
Is democracy in the twentieth century so powerless to affect 
its will? Are we all become such puppets and marionettes 
to be wire-pulled against our interests into such hideous 
convulsions? I have a high and prevailing faith in the 
essential goodness of great people. ... I have come here 
this afternoon to ask you to join with me in saying that far 
and wide throughout the masses of the British dominions 
there is no feeling of ill-will towards Germany. I say 
we honour that strong, patient, industrious German people, 
who have been for so many centuries divided, a prey to 
European intrigue and a drudge amongst the nations of the 
Continent. Now in the fulness of time, after many tribu- 



no HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

lations they have by their virtues and valour won them- ' 
selves a foremost place in the front of civilization. I say we 
do not envy them their good fortune; we do not envy them , 
their power and prosperity. We are not jealous of them; 
we wish them well from the bottom of our hearts, and we 
believe most firmly the victories they will win in science 
and learning against barbarism, against waste, the victories 
they will gain will be victories in which we shall share, and 
which, while benefiting them, will also benefit us." 

It is sad to think of sentiments such as those ex- 
pressed by Mr. Churchill six years ago, and then of 
what is taking place now. Looking from the reign 
of terror which now exists in Belgium, back to the 
days when English statesmen believed the German 
people, " by their virtues and valour had won for 
themselves a foremost place in the front of civiliza- 
tion," it is difficult to associate with the Germany of 
Wagner and Richard Strauss and Lenbach, of Goethe 
and Schiller, and of Schopenhauer and von Hum- 
boldt, all the vandahsm of Louvain, Dinant, and 
Malines. 



CHAPTER VI 

PANICMONGERS 

" And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, 
and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, 
behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: 

" None shall be weary nor stumble among them ; none 
shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their 
loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 

" Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their 
horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels 
like a whirlwind: 

" Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like 
young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, 
and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it. 

" And in that day they shall roar against them like the 
roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold 
darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the 
heavens thereof." 

— Isaiah. 

On February 8th, 1909, the French and German 
Governments made a declaration of their Intentions 
towards Morocco. This was done so that the two 
Governments might define the meaning they attached 
to the articles of the Algeciras Act in order to avoid 
misunderstanding in future. The German Govern- 
ment recognized the special political interests of 
France in Morocco, and resolved not to impede those 
interests. The Germans, pursuing only economic 
interests in Morocco, promised not to encourage any 

III 



112 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

other Power which might strive to gain economic 
privileges. The French Government reaffirmed its 
strong attachment to the maintenance of the inde- 
pendence and integrity of the Moroccan Empire, and 
contracted not to obstruct German commercial and 
industrial interests in that country. 

Whether the peoples of Europe will ever again 
permit any diplomatic traffickings no one can tell; but 
if they do, then the worst that can happen will be too 
good for them. Perhaps it is difficult to swallow the 
perfidy which lies in the statement (in the document 
referred to above) that the French ambassador at 
Berlin in February, 1909, contracted with Germany 
to maintain the independence and integrity of Mo- 
rocco; when France and Spain, with the sanction of 
Lord Lansdowne, had secretly engaged that France 
and Spain should partition Morocco. The secret 
articles were not published until November, 191 1. 
And in the face of these facts, responsible statesmen 
allow the public to be told that Germany was the 
aggressor and deliberately planned a war against 
Britain ! Such infamy is indeed hard to swallow. 
Yet, swallow it the public must, if democracy is ever 
to have a chance of bringing about in Europe a state 
of affairs that corresponds with ordinary mercantile 
honesty. 

But are the influences that use the press too pow- 
erful for the people to overcome? When the public 
are up against such forces as armament rings, military 
and naval leagues, panicmongers, and the advertising 
department of Foreign Offices, the task does seem 
almost too much for the masses. The cunning, the 
subtlety, the avarice, the nepotism, the caste power, 
and the secrecy, that shield diplomatic action, are 



BALFOUR LEADS THE CHORUS 113 

fearful forces arrayed against the people who have 
not yet by a long way reached political freedom, let 
alone economic liberty. Think of the events of 
1909, here in Britain, and then try to estimate what 
the public have to do. 

One month after the signing of the German- 
French declaration respecting Morocco, Mr. Mc- 
Kenna, who had become First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty, introduced the naval estimates which showed 
an increase of two and three-quarters millions. 
They were met with a contemptuous note of rejection 
by Mr. Balfour. " Utterly insufficient," he flung 
out, and immediately the signal was given for one of 
the wildest orgies of Jingo feeling the country has 
ever suffered. And what was it all about? The 
Government's case was laid down by Mr. Asquith, 
who said : 

" The first assumption was that the German paper pro- 
gramme — I think I described it as a paper programme — 
was one which might not be realized, and certainly would 
not be exceeded. That has turned out not to be true, be- 
cause it is undoubtedly the case — I speak with as much 
reserve as I can about it, because I want to keep strictly 
within the verifiable truth — it is a fact that during the 
autumn of last year there was an anticipation with four 
ships which belong to the German programme of 1909—10 
in the sense that orders were given, materials collected, it 
may be that in one or two cases, possibly in more, ships were 
actually laid down." 

Acceleration of the German naval programme was 
the cause of the trouble and the reason why our esti- 
mates rose suddenly in 1909, so the Government said. 
But both Prince von Biilow and Admiral von Tirpitz 
denied the accusation. Indeed, the German Govern- 



114 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ment had made a most distinct declaration to our 
Government that it was not their intention to accel- 
erate their programme. Referring to the declara- 
tion of the German Government, Mr. Asquith said: 

" As a Government, believing as we do most explicitly 
in the good faith of those declarations, we cannot possibly 
put before the House of Commons and Parliament a pro- 
gramme based on the assumption that a declaration of that 
kind will not be carried out." 

It will be seen, in spite of Mr. Asquith's words, 
that the declaration was thrown to the winds, and 
that the Government in a few weeks was swept off its 
feet by the storm of Jingo feeling in the country. 
We know now that the abominable scare was the 
work, not of a German Government whose word 
could not be relied on, but of a gang of British 
patriots connected with the armament-ring on the 
search for orders and dividends, and supported by a 
large section of the British press controlled by a syn- 
dicate. A Mr. MuUiner, once managing director of 
the Coventry Ordnance Company, was the ostensible 
instigator. In the habiliments of a patriot, he 
started a campaign that fostered hatred and hostility 
in millions of hearts and minds in both Germany and 
Britain. So early as May, 1906, Mr. Mulliner 
informed the Admiralty that the Germans were mak- 
ing preparations for increasing their navy to vast 
proportions. On March 3rd, 1909, Mr. Mulliner 
gave evidence before the Cabinet in support of the 
information he had brought to the notice of the Ad- 
miralty during a period covering nearly three years. 
In the History of a Great Scare, Mr. Perris says of 
Mr. Mulliner: 



MR. MULLINER, PATRIOT 115 

" For three years, in fact, this gentleman gave himself 
to the work of propagating the myth of a gigantic expansion 
of Krupp's works, in particular, and of German accelera- 
tion in general. It was an underground campaign ; but we 
gather from subsequent' letters and speeches that Mr. Mul- 
liner's information, sent first to the War Office in May, 
1906, 'was passed on to the Admiralty,' 'was discussed by 
them with several outsiders,' and then * passed from hand 
to hand so that hundreds have read it.' Of this ' informa- 
tion,' I need now say nothing more than that, as soon as it 
became public, it was emphatically contradicted by Messrs. 
Krupp, through Mr. John Leyland, and other correspond- 
ents, and after some years it was practically admitted by 
the Government to be false, and that time has proved that 
it never had any real basis. It was, nevertheless, propa- 
gated with unremitting zeal, in forms more and more lurid, 
and with the gradual assent of the leaders of the Opposi- 
tion." 

It was on the information laid by Mr. MuUiner 
before the Cabinet on March 3rd, that the Govern- 
ment based their case for the enormous Increase In 
the estimates. How deeply convinced the Cabinet 
was of the accuracy of the information presented by 
Mr. Mulllner, In spite of the denials of the German 
Chancellor and Admiral von TIrpItz, Is to be gath- 
ered from Mr. Asqulth's speech in the House of 
Commons : 

" If any one will refer to the speech I made a year ago, 
he will see that I said with some confidence that whereas it 
would take the Germans thirty months to build one of 
these ships we could do it in twenty-four. I was not, of 
course, committing myself precisely to the number of 
months, but I did maintain that we had a substantial ad- 
vantage in the rate of construction which would always en- 
able us to quickly overtake them when the event occurred. 



ii6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

I am sorry to say it is not the case. I believed it to be the 
fact at the time at which I spoke, but there has been such 
an enormous development in Germany — I speak quite 
frankly to the House, because I am obliged to tell them these 
matters, and to let them understand why we economists 
have presented these estimates to the House — there has 
been such an enormous development in Germany, not only 
in the provision of ship yards and slips on which the bulk 
or fabric of a ship can be built or repaired, but, what is 
still more serious, in the provision of gun-mountings and 
armaments of those great monsters, those ' dreadnaughts ' 
which are now the dominating type of ship. Such an enor- 
mous development, and I will venture to say, being most 
anxious not to excite anything in the nature of unneces- 
sary alarm in this country, such an enormous development 
is so serious from our national point of view that we could 
no longer take to ourselves as we could a year ago with 
reason the consoling and comforting reflection that we have 
the advantage in speed and the rate at which ships can be 
constructed." 

The " enormous development " four times empha- 
sized by Mr. Asquith, was a mere figment of the 
mind of the patriotic Mr. Mulliner. Nevertheless, 
It shows to what base uses Prime Ministers may be 
put, and how difficult It will be for the people to 
grapple with the evils of Jingo Imagination. This 
fact stands out In all the miserable business: the dis- 
tinct declaration of the German Government was 
Ignored by the British Cabinet, and the myth-splnning 
Mr. Mulliner was believed Instead. Though Ad- 
miral von TIrpItz told the Budget Committee of the 
Reichstag on March 17th, that there would be only 
13 ships ready in the autumn of 191 2, the Brit- 
ish Cabinet figured out the Mulliner acceleration to 
give Germany 17 ships ready by March, 19 12. 



WHAT COULD GERMANY THINK? 117 

Mr. Balfour, who would " o'ertop old Pelion," 
said 25 ships; or, in any case, 21. Germany had 
only 13 of these ships in full commission in April, 
1 9 14 — ^ve years aiter Mr. Balfour's estimate for 
three years. Mr. Mulliner had the leaders of the 
Government and the Opposition scared out of their 
wits, but Messrs. Asquith, Balfour, and Mulliner 
were wrong; Admiral von Tirpitz was right. On 
March 31st, 19 12, the Germans had only nine 
dreadnaught battleships and cruisers ready. 

Now, what must the German Government have 
thought of the intentions of the BritishGovernment ; to 
whom they had given a declaration which in 1909 was 
not believed and three years later was proved to have 
been adhered to in every particular? Did the action 
of the British Government tend to allay the feeling 
between the two countries which had already been 
described by statesmen as extremely dangerous to the 
peace of Europe? 

Animosity, already embittered in a newspaper war 
extending over at least a continuous period of three 
years, must have been aggravated beyond all bounds 
by the events of March, 1909. The solemn warn- 
ings of some leaders of political thought in the coun- 
try had little or no effect on the scaremongers 
and the armament ring agents. The taxpayers of 
Britain, and the rest of Europe were groaning under 
the terrible burden of buying implements of slaugh- 
ter; in vain, however, they cried to their Govern- 
ments to reduce expenditure on armies and navies. 
And the more the people demanded reduction, the 
more millions the contractors and their agents in- 
sisted on spending. Sir Edward Grey, on March 
29th, 1909, in the House of Commons, said: 



ii8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

" The great countries of Europe are raising enormous 
revenues, and something like one-half of them is being 
spent on military and naval preparations. You may call it 
national insurance, that is perfectly true; but it is equally 
true that one-half of the national revenue of the great 
countries in Europe is being spent on what are, after all, 
preparations to kill each other. Surely the extent to which 
this expenditure has grown really becomes a satire and a 
reflection upon civilization." 

Yes, and any Government that permits any Mr. 
Mulliner to direct its naval policy is a gross satire 
and a reflection upon democracy. The enormous 
revenues which Governments have spent during the 
past eight years on armaments have been attributed 
largely to the false Information spread about the 
w^orld by panlcmongers. Take Mr. Balfour, for 
Instance, who heard the warning of the Foreign Sec- 
retary ! Only two days after it was delivered, Mr. 
Balfour went to the Guildhall meeting, attended 
mainly by shareholders of the armament-ring, and 
there he did his best to sway the crowd in the direc- 
tion of forcing the Government to spend more mil- 
lions on preparations to kill his fellow-men. Mr. 
Balfour said: 

" The Government plan is four ships this year, and the 
preparation for a possible four ships on April ist next year. 
Do these April ist ships belong to next year's programme, 
or to this year's programme? If they belong, as I think 
they ought to belong, to this year's programme, let us put 
them into this year's programme; but if they are really and 
genuinely intended to belong to next year's programme, 
then I ask what your situation will be if you find that next 
year's programme proper, I mean next year's programme 
irrespective of the April ist ships, is itself to consist of eight 
ships, and I think very likely it will have to consist of 



WHO SHALL PAY THE BILLS? 119 

eight ships. That will mean you will attempt to build 
twelve ships next year against four this year. I call that 
preposterous." 

Preposterous, indeed I But what would be the 
effect of that speech in Germany? No one there 
would say " preposterous." They would probably 
think British ex-Ministers must have gone raving 
mad when, in the face of the declaration of the Ger- 
man Government, Mr. Balfour could tell city mag- 
nates and their clerks that he wanted the Government 
to build eight battleships that year. Whether the 
Germans were scared or not, he succeeded in scaring 
the Government almost out of its senses. In the en- 
suing months both Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward 
Grey bowed their head to the storm; and then later 
Mr. Lloyd George talked about ways and means of 
raising the money. Mr. Asquith assured his audi- 
ence at Glasgow, in April, that both he and Sir Ed- 
ward Grey had given the most explicit pledge to the 
Commons that, if the necessity should arise, four ex- 
tra ships would be ordered. Naturally the agents of 
the armament ring took good care that the necessity 
would arise. 

When Mr, Lloyd George introduced his budget of 
1909 he said: 

" We do not intend to put in jeopardy the naval su- 
premacy which is essential not only to our national ex- 
istence, but in our judgment, to the vital interests of western 
civilization. But, in my judgment, it would also be an 
act of criminal insanity to throw away eight millions of 
money, which is so much needed for other purposes, on 
building gigantic flotillas merely to encounter mythical 
armadas. That is why we propose only to incur this 
enormous expenditure when the need for it arises. We 



120 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

must ensure the complete security of our shores against all 
real dangers, but we cannot afford to build navies against 
nightmares. . . . However, as it may be necessary to make 
arrangements for laying down all the eight dreadnaughts 
on April ist, 1910. . . ." 

Then when he told the patriots how the money was 
to be raised — by a tax on land-values — a cry of 
pain arose from landlords and plutocrats all over the 
land. One hundred German sixteen-inch guns could 
not have wrought half the panic among the ruling 
classes that this Budget did. The cries of " in- 
vasion," and " raid," and " another amendment to 
the German Navy Law," were turned to howls of 
" confiscation," and " spoliation," and " robbery." 
All talk of wanting eight dreadnaughts was stilled, 
and fears of a German Invasion were lost In the hor- 
rors of having to place a value on land. If the Gov- 
ernment of 1906 had that year Introduced a Land- 
values Budget the country would have heard little 
from the scaremongers, — there Is nothing like mak- 
ing patriots pay for what they want. But In 1909 
they cried before they were hurt. There was really 
nothing to fear In the Budget for It had not reached 
a Committee stage ; the Whigs had not got to work 
on It. And, Indeed, when they had re-modelled Mr. 
Lloyd George's Budget all the vital part of it was de- 
stroyed, and the landlords and plutocrats were free 
to give their attention once more to protecting their 
acres from a foe they dreaded less than they dreaded 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

The Budget's salutary effect on the scaremongers 
may be gauged by the tactics of the Opposition. On 
April 6th, the following notice was issued by the Op- 
position Whips to the press: 



LAND- VALUES BUDGET 121 

" Arrangements are in rapid progress for the organization 
after the recess of a great campaign in the country in sup- 
port of the claim for the immediate building of the four 
conditional dreadnaughts. The keynote of the agitation is 
to be found in Mr. Balfour's speech at the Guildhall, on 
Wednesday last, March 31st: 

" ' You must not only have power to build, you must build 
without delay, without hesitation, without waiting for con- 
tingencies, for obscure circumstances, for future necessities. 
You must build now to meet the present necessity. For, 
believe me, the necessity is upon you. It is not coming to 
you in July, or November, or April next; it is on you now. 
And it is now that you must begin to meet it.' " 

The urgency of the campaign in the mind of the 
author of The Foundations of Belief, seemed to be 
overwhelming. But the Easter recess passed away 
without any signs of the great campaign. The " im- 
mediate need " was forgotten in the throes of the 
panic caused by the Land-values Budget. So the Op- 
position postponed indefinitely the inevitable war 
with Germany; and the energy to be used in making 
preparations to meet Germany was spent in discharg- 
ing gardeners, gamekeepers, and footmen, which the 
terrible Budget could not let them keep. Never a 
shell-game artist at a country fair reached the limits 
of buncombe practised by the Opposition in the 
spring of 1 909. It was a roaring farce ; — that is, It 
would have been if Germany had not taken it for 
tragedy. 

The amazing position of a world at peace arming 
huge battalions and launching great armadas, forced 
Lord Rosebery to make the following comment: 

" Without any tangible reason we see the nations pre- 
paring new armaments. They cannot arm any more men 



122 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

on land, so tKey have to seek new armaments on sea, piling 
up these enormous preparations as if for some great Arma- 
geddon — and that in the time of profoundest peace. . . . 
When I see this bursting out of navies everyw^here, when 
I see one country alone asking for 25 millions of extra 
taxation for warlike preparations, when I see the abso- 
lutely unprecedented sacrifices which are asked from us on 
the same ground, I do begin to feel uneasy at the outcome 
of it all and wonder where it will stop, or if it is going 
to bring back Europe into a state of barbarism, or whether 
it will cause a catastrophe in which the working-men of 
the world will say, * we will have no more of this madness, 
this foolery which is grinding us to powder.' " 

Lord Rosebery might then have remembered his 
criticism of the French Agreement; he might have 
asked if any secret agreement had been made by the 
Government with France ; he might have asked what 
Germany thought of the French Government since 
the signing of the new declaration earlier in that 
year. What were all the sinister designs in Britain 
and Europe that caused grave apprehension in Ger- 
many? There must have been causes other than 
panics and scares to force governments to spend so 
much money on armaments in times of peace. Na- 
tions (meaning peoples) had nothing to do with It, 
for foreign policy was kept from them, and in mil- 
itary and naval affairs the people were usually misin- 
formed. Governments, and governments alone, 
were responsible. A Continent of governments 
bound by treaties, ententes, and agreements, all for 
" the preservation of the peace of Europe," should 
not be torn by quarrels over sums spent on armies and 
navies; not if diplomacy were worth a rag-man's bag. 
But, after all, so long as secret diplomacy seeking 
peace cannot be carried on without armed support, it 



A CONFESSION OF FAILURE 123 

Is useless making complaint at the expense of the 
game. The utter absurdity of the position can be 
realized at once when our Foreign Secretary was 
moved to make such a confession of failure as the 
following : 

" We are in comparatively calm weather ; we are not in 
stormy weather in foreign politics at the present moment 
but the excessive expenditure on armaments makes the 
weather sultry." 

Secret diplomacy keeps the weather comparatively 
calm, but the armed support of secret diplomacy 
makes the atmosphere thundery! Was there ever 
such unmitigated nonsense? " I want to be friendly 
with my neighbour but he Is always so angry when he 
sees my gun in my hand and the man-trap set in the 
backyard. Most unreasonable creature ! " In the 
same speech Sir Edward Grey said he agreed with 
every word Lord Rosebery said on the same ques- 
tion. Agree? Yes, — with anything but the re- 
moval of the trap and the gun. 

There was another naval debate in the House of 
Commons in July, 1909, when Mr. Asquith pointed 
out that there was no other standard by which our 
programme could be determined than the ship-build- 
ing facilities and programmes of other nations. He 
said: 

" It is for that reason, and for that reason only, that we 
are obliged in duty to consider what Germany is doing, what 
Austria is doing, what Italy is doing, what France is doing 
— all friendly nations bound to us by ties of intimacy, cor- 
diality, and even affection, and all nations with which I hope 
we shall never have cause to quarrel." 

Apart from the cant of it, why France? And 



124 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

why not Russia ? Did France at that time stand in 
the same position to Britain as any one of the Powers 
of the Triple AUiance? Mr. Asquith knew very 
well she did not. The terms intimacy, cordiality, 
and affection, were mere literary tinsel tacked on to 
give a glitter to an otherwise abject apology for not 
ordering the four " contingent " ships in March 
according to the Mulliner-Balfour demands. The 
First Lord of the Admiralty gave the most prepos- 
terous reason for building the ships; — and six 
months later he referred to the scare of the spring 
of 1909, and said that it had not the slightest founda- 
tion in fact. 

During the General Election of January, 19 10, 
the way scares were manufactured caused much dis- 
cussion, and in the flood of oratory which poured 
from Liberal platforms some pretty severe criticism 
came from members of the Government. Mr. 
Churchill, at Leamington, was in fine fighting form: 

" They had obtained the services of an Atheist Socialist 
in order to work up German scares; they had obtained the 
services of an Anglicized German, Mr. Ellis Barker, whose 
name used to be Elsbacher, in order to work up a socialist 
scare; they were going about spending their days decrying 
British industry, and representing British workmen as a 
miserable set of broken-down creatures; they utilized their 
Tory Admiral, Lord Charles Blatchford — he meant Lord 
Charles Beresford — to electioneer on their behalf by 
threatening to reveal naval secrets; they clamoured, the 
whole crowd of them — from the Daily Mail downwards 
— for 16,000 men more to be added to the navy, and they 
proposed to pay these gallant fellows when they had been 
enlisted by taxing the bread and meat of their wives. . . . 
Their leader went about the country labouring to provoke 
distrust and ill-will with Germany by what, to quote the 



INFAMY AND SLANDER 125 

fine-cut phrase of the Prime Minister, was the loose private 
Lalk of an anonymous tourist." 

As the election, progressed the Conservatives 
found it necessary to resort to the navy again for 
party ammunition. All the old mottoes and 
" props " used in March, 1909, were taken from the 
property room and renovated. The Jingoes let 
themselves go with a vengeance, and their statements 
reached the high-water mark of infamy. Mr. Burns 
pointed out how the Jingo press, after the Naval 
Review, had lauded the navy, and remarked on Its 
magnificent strength. " Now the same news- 
papers," he said, " talked of a vanished navy and 
asked if we had a navy at all. There was no lan- 
guage scornful enough to condemn such conduct." 
Mr. Churchill, at Frome, on January 27th, 19 10, 
had to revert to the campaign of slander of his polit- 
ical opponents: 

" The attitude of the Conservative party with regard to 
the navy has been a disgrace to that party. It was the most 
contemptible policy ever pursued by a great party; it was 
a policy of trying to raise a panic without reason, a policy 
of trying to raise ill-will between two great nations without 
cause, a policy of decrying and belittling the fleet and trying 
to get money out of the pockets of the weak and the poor. 
It was the lowest depths to which any great party had ever 
sunk." 

The denunciation was not a whit too strong. Mr. 
Balfour seemed to compete with the veriest tub- 
thumper In out-and-out recklessness. At Hadding- 
ton, he said: " I understand that the Governments 
say that we have got a great many ships, and the 
number Is so considerable that we need not fear any 



126 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

aggression from any other Power. Those ships, of 
the number of which they boasted, were the ships 
that we left behind." 

The Times of January 26th, 19 10, gave the fol- 
lowing comparison of strength of the naval forces 
actually in commission in home waters, when Mr. 
Balfour resigned office, and at the beginning of 1910, 
when the Liberals entered on the fifth year of office: 

Battle- First-class Smaller Cruis- 

ships Cruisers ers, Gunboats 

1904 16 13 30 

1910 44 37 58 

Destroy- Torpedo Sub- 

ers boats marines 

1904 24 16 nil 

1910 121 88 59 

That was the true position when Mr. Balfour 
spoke at Haddington, and, if he had taken the 
ordinary precaution of looking at the figures before 
the meeting, he must have known that he was not 
speaking the truth. But the policy of trying to raise 
ill-will passed all bounds of tub-thumping decency 
when Mr. Balfour, at Hanley, said: 

" Go about at this moment if you will, and consult the 
statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers, and I am 
perfectly confident that you will find among them an abso- 
lute unanimity of opinion that a struggle sooner or later 
between this country and Germany is inevitable. I do not 
agree with them, but that is their opinion. They have 
watched with the closest interest, but not, I think, always 
with perfect comprehension, that, to foreigners, most myste- 
rious thing, English public opinion, and they have come to 
the conclusion, I believe utterly wrongly, that we are not 



HOW THE WAR WAS BRED 127 

alive to the sense of our responsibilities, and that nothing can 
stir us to a recognition of our position, and that, therefore, 
we are predestined to succumb in some great contest, the 
occasion for which nobody can foresee, to a country which 
does face facts, which is alive to its responsibility, and which 
talks little and does much. And so far has this depre- 
ciatory view of the virility of the manhood of Great Britain 
gone that I have known Germans, not connected with the 
Government, but men of position and character, men en- 
gaged in great affairs, who if you talk to them about the 
adoption of Tariff Reform by this country, actually say, 
' Do you suppose we should ever allow Great Britain to 
adopt Tariff Reform ? ' I do not press private and irre- 
sponsible conversations more than they ought to be pressed, 
but the idea of any man of education and character outside 
this country should have the audacity to say that Great 
Britain is not to settle its own taxation according to its own 
ideas, makes my blood boil." 

This contemptible exhibition of the " mind-I-don't- 
believe-it-myself," kind of gossip, led Mr. Lloyd 
George to say that: 

" It is the kind of society tittle-tattle heard at tea-tables 
where they sandwiched their toast with horrible things about 
Germany and Radicals, and about their nearest and dearest 
friends, too. ... It was not merely the manner and 
method and style of the worst society scandal-monger of the 
most cowardly type, but it created bad blood between neigh- 
bours." 

In such manner the war that was " bound to 
come," was made to come. The inevitable strife 
was encouraged in every conceivable way. Money, 
energy, and brains were not spared in setting up the 
plant, and in obtaining the raw material, for the man- 
ufacture of electioneering goods of a highly inflam- 
mable nature. The highest names in the land were 



128 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

lent to all this despicable trade of making war be- 
tween two nations. Lord Charles Beresford said, 
" He did not wish to make the navy a party thing, 
but one had to get into Parliament somehow." And 
that was how he got in. To get to St. Stephen's 
somehow was the main object of the attack, and if 
relations were strained between the British and Ger- 
man peoples in the attempt then it was an accident of 
electioneering only to be justified by the defeat of the 
Government's Land Budget. 

After the General Election, magazines and re- 
views continued to publish articles on naval affairs 
which drew comparisons between Britain and Ger- 
many. No one who followed closely the trend of 
events could come to any other conclusion but that 
Germany was the one Power in all Europe we had 
to arm against. In the summer of 19 lo, a partic- 
ularly belligerent class of Jingo in the clubs talked 
freely of the war that was " bound to come." 
" Smash 'em now," was the phrase heard in certain 
quarters. The British amateur Bernhardis, when 
they were not magnifying the German navy tenfold, 
were saying the empire had gone to ruin under the 
management of Messrs. Lloyd George and Com- 
pany. In the debate in the House of Commons on 
the navy, July, 19 10, Mr. Asqulth said: 

" There is another point, a very important point, which, 
was raised which I agree is a matter for great regret. I 
mean that the increase in our naval expenditure should have 
been associated, in so far as it has been associated, with 
the notion that we are In any sense hostile to or entertain 
hostile designs against the friendly nation of Germany. 
Nothing is further from the truth. I can say with most 
perfect sincerity that our relations with Germany have 



NAVAL FIGURES 129 

been, and at this moment are, of the most cordial char- 
acter. I look forward to increasing warmth and fervour 
and intimacy in those relations year by )'ear. I welcome, 
as every man on both sides with any sense of true patri- 
otism welcomes, all the 'various agencies and movements by 
which the two peoples are getting more and more to un- 
derstand each other. I do not believe the German Gov- 
ernment would in the least subscribe to the view which 
has been imputed to the German nation in the article just 
quoted, that our naval preparations are directed against 
them, any more than I subscribe to the view that the Ger- 
man naval preparations are directed against us. Germany 
has her own policy to pursue, her own interests to safe- 
guard." 

This extraordinary statement was made in a de- 
bate which positively reeked with comparisons made 
against Germany. It was said about twelve months 
after the Prime Minister preferred the declarations 
of the unutterable MuUiner to the declaration of the 
German Chancellor and Admiral von Tirpltz. In 
the same debate Mr. Asqulth gave the British and 
German figures of the number of dreadnaughts to be 
ready for war In April, 19 13. Britain was to have 
25 and Germany 21. What the figures were worth 
so far as Germany was concerned may be shovv^n by 
an answer to a question put to Mr. Churchill on 
March 23, 19 14. He then said Germany would 
have 14 dreadnaughts ready on April ist, 19 14, but 
on April 22nd the First Lord of the Admiralty re- 
duced the number to 13. It Is a strange way to 
foster confidence and Intimacy. Anyway, the Prime 
Minister's rebuke had little or no effect on the Oppo- 
sition leader. He went to Glasgow In October, 
1 9 10, and there delivered another alarmist speech. 



130 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

He could not understand why " there should be slips 
not used, on which no ship is being built," and he said 
he did " not believe the margin in British strength 
has ever in our history through the last hundred 
years — more than a hundred years — sunk so low 
as that." If Mr. Balfour had taken the trouble to 
look at the Navy League Annual, published at the 
time he made the speech, he would have found the 
position of the two fleets to be as follows: 

Dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnaughts. 

iQio 1911 1912 IQ13 

British 48 52 60 67 

German 22 25 29 37 

If the combination of Powers Is taken in the same 
class of ships, it will be seen that Britain and France, 
without Russia, had an enormous preponderance 
over the Triple Alliance: 



British and French 

Germany, Austria, and Italy. 



IQIO 


1911 


1912 


1913 


63 


67 


81 


88 


34 


38 


43 


48 



The marvel of it all was the fact that Mr. Balfour 
and his friends knew that they could make such state- 
ments with impunity. They knew their audiences, 
and the statements they made on the navy and Ger- 
many reflected the standard of intelligence of their 
political supporters. Yet, notwithstanding the evi- 
dence supplied by the Admiralty, the Navy League, 
and even the Daily Telegraph, which in October pub- 
lished an article from " Our Naval Correspondent," 
showing how German dreadnaught-building had re- 
ceived a serious setback, owing to the Germans learn- 
ing that we had a new 13.5-in. gun, and that in 



A MORBID APPETITE 131 

consequence *' the whole of the preparatory work, 
which had been practically completed In April last, 
will now have to be done afresh," Mr. Balfour, at 
Nottingham, in November, said: 

" Whether or not the Government have now awakened 
out of their sleep, whether or not they do seriously propose 
to deal with a situation which is full of peril — I know not 
if they are still slumbering — no matter what charges of 
partisanship are levelled at us, we will fight for a strong 
navy." 

Never was there a stronger case of increase of 
appetite growing by what it fed on. 



CHAPTER VII 

INSURANCE 

" Moreover^ neither should a city be thought happy, nor 
should a legislator be commended, because he has so trained 
the people as to conquer their neighbours; for in this there 
is a great inconvenience; since it is evident that upon this 
principle every citizen who can will endeavour to procure 
the supreme power in his own city; which crime the 
Lacedaemonians accuse Pausanias of, though he enjoyed such 
great honours. Such reasoning and such laws are neither 
political, useful, nor true ; but a legislator ought to instil those 
laws on the minds of men which are most useful for them, 
both in their public and private capacities. The rendering 
a people fit for war that they may enslave their inferiors, 
ought not to be the care of the legislator; but that they may 
not themselves be reduced to slavery by ot'"'ers. In the next 
place, he should take care that the object cf his government 
is the safety of those who are under it, and not a despotism 
over all; in the third place, that those only are slaves who 
are fit to be only so. Reason indeed concurs with experi- 
ence in showing that all the attention which the legislator 
pays to the business of war, and all other rules which he 
lays down, should have for their object rest and peace; since 
most of those states (which we usually see) are preserved by 
war, but, after they have acquired a supreme power over 
those around them, are ruined; for during peace, like a 
sword, they lose their brightness; the fault of which lies in 
the legislator, who never taught them how to be at rest." 

— Aristotle. 

The policy of European naval expansion since the 
beginning of the century is to be attributed to dis- 

132 



WAR-BREEDING 133 

trust arising out of secret foreign policy. No one 
can read the miserable story in all its sequence of 
diplomatic action, and events of aggression, without 
seeing clearly how closely allied are the dates of 
ententes, agreements, secret arrangements between 
naval and military experts, and the alteration in the 
German Naval Law. It is true the British and Ger- 
man peoples have during the period been treated to 
declarations of good-will from the representatives of 
both Governments, and our Foreign Secretary has 
returned the fine sentiments of German Chancellors 
and Admiral von Tirpitz, as to peaceful intentions 
going hand in hand with naval estimates year by year. 
In the Commons we have had flowing passages con- 
taining assurances of affection; and Ministers have 
dwelt long in many debates on the perfect under- 
standings between the two Governments as to the 
protection of interests which would never clash. 
Dreadnaughts and battalions were the mere adjuncts 
of colonizing schemes which every great civilizing 
Power must in these progressive days pursue In the 
Interests of its surplus population. Men who ven- 
tured to express their fears of such schemes were by 
the many set down as " Little Englanders," unim- 
portant persons who could never appreciate the real 
scheme of empire, owing to their dislike of blood- 
shed. " Timid, sallow looking wretches," so one 
paper described them, " with more brain than pluck," 
who could not understand why the nations should 
spend more and more on arms for murder while the 
protests of International love Increased. The ques- 
tions and doubts of these folk were by the Jingoes 
usually thrust aside as the grumblings of pacifists, 
who neither knew what love of country meant, nor 



134 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ever felt the thrill of joy that all the pomp and cir- 
cumstance of empire brings to men who think im- 
perially. Germany had a Bernhardi, but Britain 
had a Bernhardi class, which lived and moved and 
had its being in war. It thought of nothing else but 
war, and it was recruited from all sections of society. 

We have heard the diplomatist defined as the man 
v/ho lies abroad for his country's good; but it was not 
until 1909 Britain discovered the men who did it at 
liome for the same purpose. Those who passed the 
limits of what was strictly true in 1909, all worked 
for their country's good. It was their excessive 
patriotism that forced them to exceed the bounds of 
decency and truth. But now their supporters will 
say, " Where would England have been if they had 
not insisted on a big navy?" This question is al- 
ready being put to pacifists. But another question 
might be asked, and it is this : " Should we be now 
at war with Germany if the infamous Jingo campaign 
of 1909 had not been waged?" To what extent 
that campaign of bitterness and hatred against Ger- 
many helped to make this war possible no one but 
those who passed through it can tell. Still, blame- 
able as the Jingoes may be, we all must take our 
share of responsibility. 

The excuses of Ministers for the blunders con- 
nected with the estimates for 1909 reached the 
height of absurdity when the estimates of 19 10 were 
introduced. How were they to know Messrs. Mul- 
liner and Company were wrong? and Admiral von 
Tirpitz and the manager of Krupps were right? 
How were the Cabinet to know the real reason for 
the changes in the German Naval Law? Mr. 
McKenna in March, 191 1, told the House that the 



WAS IT GERMANY'S FAULT? 135 

German Fleet Law came into existence in 1905, the 
year before the Liberals took office, and that Ger- 
many then spent only £11,000,000 on her navy; but 
since that time there had been two alterations of a 
very drastic character which called for an expendi- 
ture of £22,000,000, in 191 1. From that statement 
the man in the street had to infer that the Germans 
forced the pace in the armament race without the 
slightest provocation from us. In how many debates 
on naval estimates have members on both sides of 
the House argued that Germany, and Germany 
alone, was to blame for all the excessive expenditure 
on armaments because she had altered her Naval 
Law? So many people have accepted this reason as 
the only one that it might be well now to see what 
there is in it. The dates on which the German 
Naval Law was amended were June 5th, 1906, and 
April 1 8th, 1908. The alteration of June, 1906, 
increased the number of large cruisers to be built un- 
der the Fleet Law by six; that of April, 1908, 
increased the number of battleships by four. Now, 
no definite reason has ever been given by Foreign 
Secretary, or First Lord, or Prime Minister, for the 
changes in the German Naval Law. If questions 
had been put to Ministers on this point it Is quite 
possible no answer would have been given. For sev- 
eral years only four members of the Cabinet could 
have given a proper answer. After the death of Sir 
Henry Campbell-Bannerman only three Ministers 
knew the real reason for the alteration in the German 
Naval Law, until, perhaps, the spring of 191 2. 
When the Cabinet as a whole learned the answer to 
that question is not known publicly, but the approxi- 
mate date can be guessed without much compunction. 



136 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Early in 1908 there were rumours of a disquieting 
nature about the departments connected with the 
Foreign Office, the Admiralty, and the War Office; 
that we were committed to the obligations of war in 
case France were attacked by a third Power. 
Since that time many military, naval, and Foreign 
Office men have known pretty accurately to what 
extent we were committed; but not until we were on 
the very verge of a European calamity was the pub- 
lic taken into the confidence of the Cabinet and told 
the true reason for all the armament troubles and 
international anxieties which have affected us since 
1906. The Foreign Secretary in his speech in the 
House, on August 3rd, 19 14, revealed the secret 
which had been marvellously well kept from the gen- 
eral public for eight years and a half; that in Janu- 
ary, 1906, he had authorized conversations between 
British and French naval and military experts to take 
place, and that he had spoken to Sir Henry Camp- 
bell-Bannerman, Mr. Asquith, and Mr. Haldane 
about it, and had received their sanction. 

From the time of the commencement of the Ger- 
man Naval Law until the Liberals came into office 
in 1906, there can be no doubt as to who forced the 
pace. In battleships alone our superiority in 1901 
was 112 per cent., in 1902 It was 120 per cent, in 
1903 it was 165 per cent., and in 1904 it went up to 
190 per cent. Taking the five years before the Ger- 
man Naval Law came into existence, we find the ex- 
penditure on the British navy, under Mr. Goschen, 
increased by about £10,000,000. In introducing his 
last naval Budget, Mr. Goschen told the House in 
1900 that Germany was starting a programme of 
shipbuilding at a cost of £70,000,000, to be spread 



ESTIMATES COMPARED 137 

over a period of sixteen years. The rise in expendi- 
ture during the first five years of the German Naval 
Law does not show any evidence of Germany forcing 
the pace. In 1900 .Britain spent £32,055,000, and 
Germany spent £7,472,000; in 1904 Britain spent 
£42,431,000, and Germany £11,659,000. Another 
test in expenditure, the three Power test, shows that 
in 1900 Britain spent £1,110,000 more than Ger- 
many, France and Russia combined; and in 1904 
Britain spent £6,360,000 more than the same three 
Power combination. The first dreadnaught was 
built by Britain in 1904-5, and the work was com- 
pleted in thirteen months. Bombastically our papers 
announced to the world that we had created a revolu- 
tion in shipbuilding, and had practically made scrap 
of most of the big ships of other Powers. 

The first alteration in the German Naval Law was 
made on June 5th, 1906, about six months after the 
agreement between the British and French Govern- 
ments authorizing conversations to take place be- 
tween naval and military experts. After January, 

1906, the tendency of the figures is startling. The 
combination of Britain and France under naval and 
military experts, coming shortly after the Delcasse in- 
terview in Le Gaulois, and the Lauzanne revelations 
in Le Matin, m October, 1905, forced Germany to 
alter her Naval Law. The effect of the combination 
against Germany Is remarkable. In 1906 Britain 
reduced her naval expenditure by £1,679,754, and 
France Increased her amount by £255,275 ; Germany 
raised her expenditure by £704,501. The next year, 

1907, Britain reduced her estimates by £52,587; and 
France also reduced her expenditure by £516,445; 
Germany raised her estimates by £ i ,6 1 8,053. Then, 



138 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

in 1908, Britain increased the amount spent on the 
navy by £900,000, and France also raised her expend- 
iture, by £310,515; Germany then increased her 
naval expenditure by £2,972,637. The net result of 
the authorization of conversations between the Brit- 
ish and French naval and military experts was to 
force Germany to raise her expenditure on her navy 
by £5,295,191 in three years. The work of isola- 
tion was begun, and Germany set about making full 
preparations for meeting her " peaceful " neighbours 
east and west. 

The second alteration of the German Naval Law 
took place on April i8th, 1908. The reasons for 
the second change in the Naval Law are not far to 
seek. German naval experts now held that they 
would have to reckon in future with Great Britain, 
France, and Russia. Speaking on the naval pro- 
grammes of great Powers, Sir Edward Grey, in Jan- 
uary, 1908, said: 

" When I see the great programmes of naval expenditure 
which are being produced in some other countries, I think it 
right that the attention of this country should be devoted to 
these programmes, because if they are carried out in their 
entirety it will undoubtedly become necessary for us in the 
interests, not of the Empire, but for the preservation of our 
independence and for our own safety at home to make fur- 
ther increases in our own navy." 

Now the only great Power he could have had In 
mind was Germany. France was out of the ques- 
tion and Russia was not a Power we could then count 
against us. If the Foreign Secretary had other 
Powers than Germany in mind they must have been 
those of the Triple Alliance. He knew when he 
iVii'de that speech that the military and naval experts 



EDUCATION IN ANARCHISM 139 

of France and Britain were then formulating plans 
for the General Staffs; and he must have known the 
real reasons for Germany's naval expansion since 
1906. The speech .was really a feeler; it was the 
Foreign Secretary's way of preparing Liberals in the 
country for a change of naval policy. It was his 
way of covering up the blunder he made in 1906, and 
screening the work of his department, together with 
the plans of the experts; and throwing the blame of 
expansion in armaments on Germany, the victim of 
our Foreign Office policy of secrecy. When one 
thinks of the way the general public, and indeed lead- 
ing Liberals, have been misled in these affairs since 
1906, it is in itself enough to make any thinking per- 
son an anarchist. Governments that cannot be 
straightforward with a people to whom they are only 
servants, — because the systems at the Admiralty and 
the Foreign Office are based on secrecy, — should at 
least be honest about the difficulties which secret sys- 
tems raise; and should inform the public as to the 
dangers and disabilities which make true representa- 
tive government impossible, and peace a system of 
grinding taxation. 

In the autumn of 1907 Britain concluded an agree- 
ment with Russia. Both Governments engaged to 
respect the integrity and independence of Persia; 
they declared that they had no intention of changing 
the political status of Afghanistan; and they con- 
tracted to respect the territorial integrity of Tibet. 
This agreement removed many of the old contentions 
which lay between Britain and Russia. Taken with 
the policy of isolating Germany, it was not calculated 
to mollify the German Government. Besides, Rus- 
sia was the ally of France. Nevertheless, the Ger- 



140 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

man Emperor visited London In the autumn of 1907, 
and was a guest at the Guildhall. On that occasion 
the Emperor gave an emphatic and impressive dec- 
laration, to use Mr. Asquith's words, that the gov- 
erning purpose of his policy was the preserva;tion of 
the peace of Europe, and the maintenance of good 
relations between our two countries. A people 
never knows quite where It stands internationally so 
long as there is only one royal family in Europe, and 
It certainly perplexed many sober citizens to learn 
that the potentate which caused Britain so much 
anxiety in 1905 was enjoying city hospitality in 1907. 
It v/as puzzling. But stranger events were soon to 
happen. 

On March 6th, 1908, there appeared In the Times 
the following letter from its military correspondent, 
under the title, " Under which King? " : 

" I consider It my duty to ask you to draw the attention 
of the public to a matter of grave importance. It has come 
to my knowledge that His Majesty the German Emperor 
has recently addressed a letter to Lord Tweedmouth on the 
subject of British and German naval policy, and it is af- 
firmed that this letter amounts to an attempt to influence, 
in German interests, the Minister responsible for our Navy 
Estimates." 

This was too much for the Jingoes. It was one 
thing Inviting the German Emperor to sample our 
turtle, but quite another when he Invited the First 
Lord of the Admiralty to reduce the naval estimates. 
Outraged Jingoes rose to the occasion with unprece- 
dented alacrity. The question was raised In the 
House of Lords, and Lord Rosebery intervened in 
the debate to defend Lord Tweedmouth from the 
bitter attacks of the Yellow press. He said : 



MISREPRESENTATIONS 141 

" I gather from the newspapers, which seem to have been 
singularly well-informed of late, that the German Emperor 
was somewhat disquieted by a letter which appeared in the 
public prints, in which, very pointed note was taken of him- 
self. And if I am still to believe the public prints, he wrote 
a letter, partly of banter, to my noble friend the First Lord 
of the Admiralty on this subject, to which my noble friend 
replied, in, I suppose, as much a tone of banter as one in 
his situation can employ towards such a potentate as the 
German Emperor. Out of this we have seen a whole world 
of absolutely insane inferences drawn — that the German 
Emperor was attempting to influence my noble friend, with a 
view to cut down the Navy Estimates, to check the progres- 
sion of our armaments, to neutralize the defensive activities 
of our nation, and in some subterranean manner to subvert 
the whole constitution of the British Government. Surely 
that is placing' ourselves, our Government, our institutions, 
in a supremely ridiculous position. . . . What then is the 
lesson I draw from the excitement produced by this very 
slight incident? It is this — that the responsibility of the 
press both in England and Germany should be realized by 
that press, and that they should not lash both nations into a 
state of soreness which some day may amount to exaspera- 
tion and may produce the gravest dangers to European 
peace." 

A copy of the Kaiser's letter has recently appeared 
In a London journal, and there is not one word in it 
to justify the statement made by the Times corre- 
spondent. It in no way attempts to influence the 
naval plans of our Admiralty. What the letter con- 
tains is a protest against scaremongers in high quar- 
ters; and, in all fairness to the German Emperor, it 
must be said he had very good reason to protest. 
The following paragraphs from the letter indicate 
the character of the whole of It: 



142 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

" During my last pleasant visit to your hospitable shores 
I tried to make your authorities understand what the drift 
of the German Naval Policy is. But I am afraid that my 
explanations have been either misunderstood or not believed, 
because I see the ' German Danger ' and the ' German 
Challenge to British Naval Supremacy ' constantly quoted 
in the different articles. The phrase, if not repudiated or 
corrected, sown broadcast over the country and daily dinned 
into British ears, might in the end create most deplorable 
results. ... It is absolutely nonsensical and untrue that 
the German Naval Bill is to provide a Navy meant as a 
' challenge to British Naval Supremacy.' 

" It is very galling to the Germans to see their country 
continually held up as the sole danger and menace to Britain 
by the whole press of the different contending parties; con- 
sidering that other countries are building too, and there are 
even larger fleets than the German. Doubtless when party 
faction runs high there is often a lamentable lack of dis- 
crimination in the choice of the weapons; but I really must 
protest that the ' German Naval Programme ' should be 
the only one for exclusive use, or that such a poisoned one 
should be forged as the ' German Challenge to British 
Supremacy at Sea.' " 

Now when this letter was published some editorial 
paragraphs accompanied it, in which the following 
statement was made : 

" At the same time, the Imperial German Navy was mak- 
ing swift and steady progress; and its menace to British 
supremacy aroused considerable alarm in this country. Al- 
though the British navy held a superiority over the German 
navy in ships not of the 'dreadnaught ' type, the balance in 
* dreadnaughts ' was virtually even." 

Virtually even ! Let us see. The sentences refer 
to the naval situation as it was at the time the Kaiser 
wrote to Lord Tweedmouth, February 14th, 1908. 



A TATTERED SCARECROW 143 

Britain had then four dreadnaughts, and Germany 
had not one. Will it be believed in the face of that 
statement from a London penny paper, published 
October 30th, 1914, that we had seven dread- 
naughts afloat before Germany had one ready for 
sea ? That is just the kind of stuff the scares were 
made of. But to return to Lord Rosebery's state- 
ment about the Kaiser's letter. 

The yellow press took little heed of his ominous 
words. Any bit of club-room gossip was gathered 
for Jingo fuel, and the campaign of envy and hatred 
pushed for all it was worth in both Britain and Ger- 
many. In the House of Commons the pacifists 
raised a debate on the motion of Mr. Murray Mac- 
donald to reduce expenditure on armaments, but it 
was defeated by 320 to 73. The navy estimates 
were introduced on March 9th, the same day the 
Kaiser-Tweedmouth letters were discussed in the 
Lords, and revealed an increase of £900,000. Mr. 
Balfour raised at once the question of German supe- 
riority, which only existed in his imagination, and laid 
the basis of the scare which culminated in the orgy 
of mendacity of March, 1909. 

After the estimates of 1908, the policy of reducing 
naval armaments was buried, and time was beginning 
to show that Continental friendships were expensive 
affairs for Britain to indulge in. But what else could 
be expected? After the death of Sir Henry Camp- 
bell-Bannerman, the Whigs got control of the Cab- 
inet. Peace was in doubt. Retrenchment was blown 
to the winds, and Reform turned into socialistic 
channels. The old watchwords of Liberalism were 
dropped, and the Gladstonian tags fitted no perora- 
tions. An effective Opposition could have rhade po- 



144 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

litlcal hay of the Government, but, torn with internal 
dissension, it languished inept and fatuous. The 
future looked dark for democracy with the Cabinet 
assuming more power, the rights of private members 
disappearing, the doings of the Foreign Office be- 
coming more and more shrouded in mystery, and the 
growth of influence of armaments rings over the 
Admiralty and the War Office. The redeeming 
features after 1908, were the Budget of 1909, and 
the Parliament Act. 

In looking back, no one with an impartial eye can 
detect any other course open to the governments but 
one of increasing expenditure on armies and navies. 
Agreements with France, and Russia, and Japan, to 
say nothing of all the other serious aggravations re- 
ferred to by Ministers in their speeches over and 
over again, could have no other result in Europe 
than arming the nations for Armageddon. The 
more agreements we made, the more Germany be- 
came impressed with the fact that she was the one 
Power in all the world Britain was arming against. 
Her press from the summer of 1909, scarcely ever 
ceased from pointing that out to the German people. 
When the scare of 1908 was at its height. Ministers 
here protested they had no intention of trying to iso- 
late Germany; but it was too late. Leading French 
publicists said the opposite; many of them frankly 
condemned the policy of the Entente which had the 
effect of isolating Germany. Sir Edward Grey, who 
was responsible for our making so many friendships, 
tried to make the country believe that the Govern- 
ment had no designs against Germany when they 
drew up agreements with Russia and France. Yet 
on April ist, 1908, before the German Naval Law 



HOW WE STOOD 145 

was amended for the second time, the navies of 
Britain, France and Germany stood as follows: 

Armoured 

Battleships Cruisers Destroyers 

Great Britain 57 34 142 

France 21 19 48 

Germany 22 8 61 

How could any German, whether educated by 
Kant or Nietzsche, in the face of these figures listen 
for a moment to the amiable phrases of the Foreign 
Secretary about there being no desire on the part of 
Britain to isolate Germany? Germans, generally, 
could not possibly believe that there was no intention 
on the part of a large section of the British press and 
people, in the spring of 1909, to isolate their country. 
Ministers have always striven to keep the public 
mind fixed on British and German naval development 
only, just as if Britain stood in her old position of 
splendid Isolation. It would not have suited the 
Foreign Office game to let the people know that our 
understandings with France and Russia seriously af- 
fected the naval programmes of Germany. It had 
been said that the only reason why Germany altered 
her Naval Law In 1908, was for the purpose of pro- 
viding work for her dockyards where trade was 
almost at a standstill, and the workers were on the 
point of rioting. It is true, trade was exceeding 
bad in Germany In 1907, and 1908. But the Ger- 
man Government was not as philanthropic as all that. 
More likely the big firms demanded more orders, as 
they did in Britain, and their demands fitted In with 
foreign and naval policy. Anyway, the alteration of 
the German Naval Law did not make enough differ- 



146 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ence to scare the wits out of our Jingoes and the Gov- 
ernment. Without a Naval Law, the Entente Pow- 
ers, from the time of the big scare, 1909, up to this 
year, simply smothered all Germany's attempts to 
become mistress of the sea. The figures of new con- 
struction from 1909 to 1 9 14 will never convince any 
German that our policy was other than one of com- 
plete isolation: 

Great Britain France Russia Germany 

1909 £11,076,551 £4,517,766 £ 1,758,487 £io,i77,o6a 

1910 14,755,289 4,977,682 1,424,013 11,392,856 

1911 15,148,171 5,876,659 3,216,396 11,710,859 

1912 16,132,558 7,114,876 6,897,580 11,491,187 

1913 16,883,875 8,893,064 12,082,516 11,010,883 

1914 18,676,080 11,772,862 13,098,613 10,316,264 

These figures speak volumes. They tell their 
own story of isolation. The rise in the expenditure 
of the French and Russian Governments on their 
navies is seen to be stupendous. And while the 
patriot is thinking about foreign friendships it might 
be well to give a thought in passing to the armament 
ring of Great Britain, to Messrs. Schneider, and to 
Messrs. Krupp, and figure up what they were getting 
out of the wholesale trade of murdering millions. 
Talk about big business ! These four countries in one 
year spend over £50,000,000 on new construction 
alone. Ten per cent, of it makes a tidy dividend for 
large numbers of " apostles of peace." Jingoism is 
the best and biggest business on the two continents. 

Now, no fair-minded Britisher can look at the 
figures and say that they prove in the slightest degree 
that Germany intended to smash Britain. The wild- 
est notions of German naval expansion have been 
sedulously sown in this country for years. Since Mr. 
Balfour's pilgrimage in 1909, it is not surprising to 
hear men, usually well-informed in civil matters, say 



IF YOU WERE A GERMAN 147 

that the *' Germans are spending many millions more 
on their navy than we are on ours." But that is one 
of the tricks of the trade, for the agents of war know 
their public, and a certain class of patriot as a rule 
will believe any yarn told by a Lord or a front-bench 
man. 

Is it too much to ask those people who Insist on 
saying Germany provoked this war to " smash us," 
to try to place themselves in the position of an intel- 
ligent German, one sufficiently interested in foreign 
affairs to inquire what France and Russia, two coun- 
tries allied against Germany, were spending on their 
navies ; and then say Germany was wholly responsible 
for the European conflagration? It is the fashion 
now to try to focus public attention on the White 
Papers, just as it was for Ministers to keep the public 
mind bent on Germany's navy; but White Papers 
record only mere incidents in this affair; they deal 
with only a little of the doings of diplomatists. This 
business began before Sir Edward Grey went to the 
Foreign Office. Our White Paper in itself is only 
useful for salving the consciences of well-meaning 
Christians. There is a lot of history connected with 
this war not to be found anywhere in any White 
Paper. 

Think of the German who knew about the secret 
articles to the Anglo-French Agreement; who re- 
membered the 1905 scandal connected with the 
alleged Schleswig-Holstein invasion by the British in 
support of France; who had a lively recollection of 
the work of M. Delcasse; and who, in the spring of 
this year, saw the figures of France's new construc- 
tion raised from £4,977,682 in 1910 to £1 1,772,862 
in 1 9 14; — and then imagine his feelings when he 



148 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

read British Ministers' statements about having no 
desire to isolate Germany. It is all very well for the 
man who is engrossed in the politics of his own coun- 
try to say, "Germany forced the pace!" to say, 
" Germany meant to smash us," and " It was bound 
to come, and the sooner the better." But surely in 
the name of all that is reasonable, for the future 
guidance of the people, for the welfare of the democ- 
racies statesmen now prate so much about, is it not of 
the greatest importance that the people should learn 
the full lesson of what foreign policy and the armed 
support of that policy means ? It is of course useless 
to talk about the Golden Rule while Christian nations 
are busy making an abattoir of Europe, but it should 
be possible for thinking men and women, for a mo- 
ment or two, to put themselves in the shoes of a 
fellow-German. Try it for a moment. Forget 
Bernhardi, Nietzsche, and all that British literary 
giants, scientists, and theologians, have said about 
them. Then think of Russia, and all Russia meant 
to a German. A man who lived through the 
Crimean War can appreciate what that means. 
Perhaps it is quite Impossible for one of us to feel 
what a German would feel on seeing the Russian fig- 
ures for new construction: in 1910 Russia spent 
£1,424,013, and in 1914 she spends £13,098,613! 
Now look at the figures of the two great combina- 
tions, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente : 

NEW CONSTRUCTION, 1914 

Triple Triple 

Entente Alliance 

Great Britain £18,676,080 Germany £10,316,264 

France 11,772,862 Austria 4,051,976 

Russia 13,098,613 Italy 3,237,000 



Triple Entente £43,547)555 Triple Alliance £17,605,240 



WHO WAS ACCELERATING? 149 

The pacific intentions of the Entente Powers 
amounted to a two and a half Power standard at 
least. It must be plain that no assurances of the 
peaceful intentions of Britain, or the Entente Pow- 
ers, could, at any time since the death of Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman, carry the slightest influence in 
Germany against the actions of our Foreign Office. 
The preparations for this war were in the making 
shortly after the festivities of Toulon and Kron- 
stadt, and the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904 was 
the first step Britain took in the diplomatic game of 
Isolating Germany. 

The debate in the House in March, 191 1, con- 
tained some striking statements from Ministers. 
The First Lord had to admit he was completely mis- 
led in 1909. The facts were right, but the infer- 
ences were wrong. The German Government was 
quite right as to their programme; no acceleration 
was to take place. It was Britain, not Germany, 
that was guilty of acceleration. Mr. McKenna said 
the effect of building the four contingent ships of 
1909, " has merely accelerated the date of comple- 
tion by a couple of years of two of the ships, and will 
have incidentally the effect of relieving the estimates 
in the year afterwards." No relief came to justify 
that statement. The expenditure went up higher 
and higher each year. Both the gross expenditure, 
and the money for new construction went up by leaps 
and bounds after 1909. Sir Edward Grey described 
the situation with a humour of which he was quite 
unconscious : 

*' Before I speak strongly on that point (the evil of in- 
creasing expenditure on armaments) I should be misleading 
the honourable member and the House if because I speak and 



150 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

feel strongly on that point I gave any impression that the 
Navy Estimates now before the House were more than the 
Government think is necessary to meet the requirements of 
the case this year. The First Lord has had a very difficult 
task. He has had to stand against panic and scare, notably 
in the election before last, greatly fomented by the calcu- 
lations made by the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Bal- 
four) which, when the calculations proved to be mistaken 
disappeared. . . . We certainly, I think, cannot be accused 
of having forced the pace. Our Navy Estimates for 1909 
are said to have given provocation. They have not given 
rise to increased naval expenditure in Germany, or, I believe, 
in any other country. The last addition to the German 
Naval programme was settled by law in 1908." 

The Foreign Secretary did not know of increased 
naval expenditure In Germany, or in any other coun- 
try; but it was necessary for Britain to Introduce esti- 
mates showing an Increase of nearly £4,000,000. 
Yet no one could accuse Britain of forcing the pace! 
The Foreign Secretary made that statement In the 
House on the very day when the First Lord said the 
alteration of the German Naval Law was the cause 
of our raising our expenditure. The debate was 
full of Instruction as to the value of panics, and the 
statement of the Jingo press and armament ring 
agents. 

In April, 191 1, there was a debate In the House 
of Lords on Compulsory MIHtary Service. Lord 
Roberts led the attack on the voluntary system. 
Lord Haldane, who was told in 1906 of the secret 
arrangement for conversations to take place between 
British and French military and naval experts, re- 
plied, and let some light fall on the International 
situation, In a passage the significance of which has 
been overlooked. He said: 



"COMMANDER OF THE FORCES" 151 

" The German Chancellor, in a speech to which the noble 
earl referred, spoke of the willingness of his country to 
exchange naval information with this country, a course 
which, if taken, must -tend in some degree to reduce the 
risk of scares, which have done so much to force up the 
naval estimates, not only in this country, but in other coun- 
tries. Moreover, with France and Russia we are in agree- 
ment, and a war in defence of the Indian frontier against 
Russia appears less likely now than it has appeared for gen- 
erations. ... I have always thought that the true Com- 
mander of the Forces in this country, naval and military, 
is not the sailor or the soldier, but the Foreign Secretary." 

It is evident, now that we have the figures for ex- 
penditure, that the invitation of the German Chancel- 
lor was not accepted. His " solemn declaration " of 
1909 was ignored, and a panic " without foundation 
in fact " was the factor that did " so much to force 
up the naval estimates." Still the chief point of 
interest in Lord Haldane's extraordinary speech was 
the admission that we were in agreement with both 
France and Russia, and the inference to be drawn is 
that there was no necessity for arming against those 
countries. Speeches delivered in the House of 
Lords do not at best receive the attention from the 
press and from the public they deserve. They do, 
however, engage the attention of diplomatists and 
legislators In foreign countries, and the fact that 
Lord Haldane regarded the Foreign Secretary as 
Commander of the Forces must have occasioned no 
small surprise on the Continent. 

The Moroccan trouble In the summer of 191 1 
brought Germany and Britain to the verge of war. 
A little bit of a German gunboat, the Panther, visited 
Agadir, and scared the British Empire out of its 



152 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

wits. As for the Panther, the press soon made 
leviathan out of a herring. In all the sordid his- 
tory of British Foreign Office deals, there is nothing 
so unutterably discreditable as the business connected 
with the Agadir incident. Germany was a party to 
the Act of Algeciras of 1906, a " scrap of paper" 
containing 123 articles, which confirmed the pledges 
of the Powers to uphold the independence and in- 
tegrity of Morocco. The separate Franco-German 
declaration of February, 1909, has already been re- 
ferred to; and the secret articles to which Britain 
was an accomplice, whereby Spain and France were 
to partition Morocco, it must be remembered, were 
not made public until November after the visit of 
the Panther to Agadir. Now the real reason for 
the appearance of the Panther at Agadir was this: 
Germany saw France occupy Fez, with the inten- 
tion of staying there; and Spain in occupation of 
El-Kasr and Larash; both countries having tens of 
thousands of soldiers spread over the northern dis- 
tricts of Morocco. Therefore, as a party to the 
Algeciras Act, and as a partner of France, In the 
Declaration of 1909, she was not inclined to stand 
aloof while France and Spain partitioned Morocco. 
Sir Edward Grey admitted in the House that he was 
in favour of the French descent on Fez; but he, of 
course, would give no reason why he approved the 
French expedition. Secret articles, and backstairs 
understandings, placed the British Government in 
an unenviable position. That the whole of our 
naval and military forces should, because of the com- 
mitments of the Foreign Office, be placed at the dis- 
posal of French, and Spanish, and British gangs of 
concessionaires, land-grabbers, and financial sharks, 



THE POINT OF VIEW 153 

operating in and about European foreign offices, was 
to say the least an abominable act of treachery to 
the people. And that Mr. Lloyd George should 
lend himself to that kind of work is enough to make 
one despair of trusting any Radical, once he enters 
a Cabinet. What would he have said of the busi- 
ness if he had been in Opposition! If Lord Lans- 
downe, say, had been Foreign Secretary, what would 
Mr. Lloyd George have said of a British Govern- 
ment lending its naval, military and diplomatic 
strength to those who made of northern Africa what 
Belgium made of the Congo ? 



CHAPTER VIII 

APOSTLES OF PEACE 

" That friendly relations may ultimately be established be- 
tween England and Germany without the arbitrament of 
war I earnestly hope and occasionally believe. It depends 
mainly on the English people. They must not allow them- 
selves to rest in self-complacency, nor, in ignorant nervous- 
ness as to the susceptibilities of foreign powers, slacken their 
efforts to increase the present power of the navy. They 
must, moreover, insist on military reforms absolutely neces- 
sary if England is to maintain her place among the nations, 
and that the destinies of this country shall be in the hands 
of f>ersons acquainted with the march of opinion and with 
the strength and tendency of political forces in the leading 
countries of Europe. Those who counsel Englishmen to be 
vigilant in these matters are true Apostles of Peace. Eng- 
land and Germany will never be brought together until the 
Germans thoroughly realize that there is no hope of substi- 
tuting as the symbol of sea power the German eagle for the 
white ensign of the British Navy." 

— Sir Rowland Blennerhassett 
in The National Review, December, 1903. 

It has been said that every politician sooner or 
later must eat his own words and swallow his own 
principles. The exigencies of party warfare de- 
mand metamorphosis at some stage or another; 
nothing Is more potent In bringing these changes 
about than office; It Is the sarcophagus of the ideal- 
ist. A man may be never so firm In his principles 

154 



PRINCIPLES AND OFFICE 155 

when he is a private member; but once he is taken 
within the walls of a Government department the 
lime of it seems to eat through him and petrify his 
soul. The House itself is bad enough in this re- 
spect, and it has been called, not without reason, 
the mausoleum of ideals. But a private member 
need not vote unless he likes; he might support his 
party in some legislation and vote against it on meas- 
ures he objects to, or not vote at all. It is different 
when a man takes office; he must conform to the 
tradition of the department or resign his post. Few 
resign, voluntarily. The attractions outweigh the 
shock one's principles must undergo. The " slings 
and arrows " of criticism from an Opposition press 
may be hard to bear, but there are only between 
fifty or sixty posts of honour in the Government, and 
opportunity comes but once to the young man with- 
out lineage or a safe seat. Ambition nursing an 
ideal on a back-bench, stirred by the vigour of its 
principles, murmurs to it, " it will not be so with 
thee." That is what " makes calamity of so long 
life." We bear the ills of office, rather than fly to 
others we know not of. 

After the machinations of our Foreign Office in 
191 1, Germany could have no doubt at all that the 
policy of the Entente Powers was to isolate Ger- 
many by any means and at all costs. There were in 
the autumn of 191 1 men in France who did not 
hesitate to speak severely on the question of isolat- 
ing Germany, though leading statesmen in England 
denied the charge in vain. Our naval policy dic- 
tated by the " Commander of the Forces," no doubt, 
was continued by Mr. Churchill when he was made 



156 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

First Lord and in one of the first speeches he de- 
livered after he took charge of the navy, he said: 

" Our naval preparations are necessarily based upon the 
naval preparations of other Powers. . . . Next year the 
Naval Law . . . prescribes that the limit of expansion has 
been reached, and that the annual quota of new ships added 
to the German navy will fall to half the quota of recent 
years. Hitherto that law, as fixed by Parliament has not 
been in any way exceeded, and I gladly bear witness to the 
fact that the statements of the German Ministers about it 
have been strictly borne out by events. Such is the state 
of affairs in the world to-day that the mere observance of 
that law, without an increase, would come to Europe as a 
great and sensible relief." 

Again we have it from a Minister that the Ger- 
man Government kept strictly to the letter of their 
declaration and did not accelerate building; but the 
old bogey of basing our policy on the preparations 
made by other Pov^ers is laid down again by the new 
First Lord. After the admission of Lord Haldane 
that we were in agreement with France and Russia, 
it would have been more straightforward to have 
said our naval policy is based on the preparations 
of Germany, or the Triple Alliance. The Admiralty 
however stuck to the keep-it-dark policy of the For- 
eign Office. In both departments secrecy was es- 
sential for the needs of the " experts," no matter 
how inimical that policy might be to the interests of 
the people. Still it was like getting money out of 
the taxpayer under false pretences. First scare 
him to death, and then rob him. And the policy is 
not to be excused because it may be said that the 
taxpayer seemed to like it; nor is it to be forgiven 
because the fleets of the Triple Alliance are com- 



NEW CONSTRUCTION 157 

paratively idle at present. What must be consid- 
ered is to what extent that policy fostered inter- 
national hatred and strife. Look, at the figures for 
191 1 and 19 1 2, and see the way the game was 
worked : 

NEW CONSTRUCTION OF ENTENTE POWERS AND 
TRIPLE ALLIANCE 

igii lgl2 

Great Britain £15,148,171 £16,132,558 

France 5,876,659 7,114,876 

Russia 3,216,396 6,897,580 



£24,241,226 £30,145,014 

Germany £11,710,859 £11,491,187 

Italy 2,677,302 3,227,000 

Austria 3,125,000 5,114,206 

£17,513,161 £19,832.393 

So basing our naval preparations on the naval 
preparations of other Powers could have no other 
meaning in practice than working in with France and 
Russia against the preparations of the Triple Al- 
liance. When the latter showed an increase of £2,- 
319,232, it was necessary for our preparations to 
be increased by £5,903,788, for one year. But the 
public are not supposed to know that the prepara- 
tions of France and Russia have always been re- 
garded by Germany as the chief factors governing 
her naval policy. 

The debates in the House of Commons and the 
House of Lords on the Moroccan trouble were 
notable in many respects. Mr. John Dillon's criti- 
cism of the actions of the Foreign Office was one of 
the most brilliant pieces of denunciation heard in 
the House for many a day. Even so, the public 
stood outside, oblivious of its meaning to them. 



158 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Their attitude might be summed up in the cry of the 
man, at a poHtical meeting in the North, who said, 
" To hell with Foreign Affairs, — when am I going 
to get thirty bob a week?" There is, however, a 
passage in Mr. Dillon's speech which must be remem- 
bered: 

" I do not believe any representative assembly in the his- 
tory of the world has ever been called upon to discuss a 
matter so vital and so far-reaching as that which the House 
of Commons has before it to-day to consider, and with so 
absolute a lack of information. This present discussion in 
this respect beats all records. The House was summoned 
for this discussion to-day without any papers whatsoever. 
What is it that the House ought to have had before we were 
asked to embark on this discussion? We ought to have had 
a Blue Book containing the diplomatic history of the Mo- 
roccan question, including the secret treaty with Spain. 
The Algeciras Act has already been published. I refer to 
the secret treaty with Spain, published for the first time the 
other day, and which the Foreign Minister of France de- 
clared three weeks ago he had never heard of, and was not 
aware of the existence of a treaty to which this country was 
a party. We should have had the text of the German 
Agreement of 1909, with an explanation of how it came 
about that France jockeyed Germany in regard to that agree- 
ment, and withdrew from carrying into effect — a matter 
that was one of the immediate causes of the recent friction. 
We ought at all events to have had an account of diplo- 
matic correspondence between the four great Powers inti- 
mately interested in the question of Morocco, as is 
customary to be given to the House of Commons on such an 
occasion. This would have enabled members of the House 
before the debate commenced, to form a really well- 
grounded judgment upon the whole matter. We have 
heard a good deal to-night of the secrecy of the Foreign policy 
of this country. It is no use attempting to deny it. Those 



FRANCE "BLEW THE GAFF" 159 

of us who have been a long time in this House, and can 
remember the methods of the Foreign Office twenty-five 
years ago, know as a matter of fact, which cannot be suc- 
cessfully denied, that the Foreign Office policy has become 
during the last ten years progressively more secret every 
year. Until this present year this has gone on, when the 
intense pressure of Foreign Affairs and the danger of war 
has forced the hands of the Minister to give some time for 
the discussion of Foreign Office affairs. For ten years the 
Foreign policy of this country has been conducted behind 
an elaborate screen of secrecy. Some of us pointed out 
years ago that the secrecy of Foreign Affairs was the inevi- 
table and logical result of that new departure which was 
heralded about ten years ago, and which we heard praised 
once more on the floor of this House to-night. I refer to 
what is known as the policy of the continuity of the Foreign 
policy of this country; of the withdrawal of the Foreign 
policy of this country from the sphere of party politics." 

Mr. Dillon might have thanked his stars that he 
got as much as he did, for if the Paris papers, Le 
Temps and Le Matin, had not published the secret 
articles for the partition of Morocco between Spain 
and France, precious little Information would have 
been volunteered on the subject by the Foreign Sec- 
retary. There was a passage In the speech of the 
Foreign Secretary that should be noted; for it Indi- 
cates his attitude of mind towards Germany, and, 
Indeed, shows how utterly futile It was, while such 
sentiments were expressed, to try to make Germans 
believe that the policy of our Foreign Office aimed 
at anything else than Isolation. Sir Edward Grey 
said: 

" One does not make new friendships worth having by 
deserting old ones. New friendships by all means let us 
make, but not at the expense of the ones which we have. 



i6o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

I desire to do all I can to improve the relations with Ger- 
many, as I shall presently show. But the friendships which 
we have, have lasted now some years, and it must be a 
cardinal point of improvement of relations with Germany 
that we do not sacrifice one of those. And what I desire 
and what I hope may be possible, though it may seem diffi- 
cult at the present time, is that the improved relations may 
be such as will improve not only ourselves, but those who 
are our friends." 

The warmth of the proposal must have chilled 
the lady to the marrovv^. And this after all the in- 
dignity and contumely thrust on Germany by our 
Foreign Office since 1904! No one who cares to 
look at the speeches of the Foreign Secretary in and 
out of the House, could deny that his consistently 
frigid overtures to Germany for " affection " and 
" friendship " was one of the chief features of his 
administration. What hope was there of better re- 
lations with our own stock when we were in diplo- 
matic agreement with Germany's ancient foes, 
France and Russia? Would the Foreign Secretary 
say the Franco-Russian Alliance helped in any way 
to bring about improved relations with Germany? 
Why talk about making new friendships by desert- 
ing old ones, when the policy of making the old 
ones was the cause of limiting the number of new 
ones? 

Mr. Bonar Law, the new leader of the Opposi- 
tion, in striking contrast to the speech of Sir Edward 
Grey, referred to Germany with warmth: 

" It is an idea prevalent, especially on the Continent, that 
there is in this country a feeling of hostility to Germany. 
In my opinion that belief is entirely unfounded. So far as 
I am concerned — the House will acquit me of egotism in 



MR. LAW ON "THE INEVITABLE" i6i 

making these remarks; I am making them not only because 
I happen to be the leader of the party behind me, but also 
because I think I can express the view of the great mass of 
our countrymen — so far as I am concerned, I never had, 
and certainly have not now, any such feeling. During my 
business life I had daily commercial intercourse with Ger- 
many. I have many German friends, I love some German 
books almost as much as our favourites in our own tongue, 
and I can imagine few, if any, calamities which would seem 
so great as a war, whatever the result, between us and the 
great German people. I hear it also constantly said — 
there is no use shutting our eyes and ears to obvious facts — 
that owing to divergent interests, war some day or other 
between this country and Germany is inevitable. I never 
believe in these inevitable wars. ... If, therefore, war 
should ever come between these two countries, which heaven 
forbid, it will not, I think, be due to irresistible natural 
laws. It will be due to the want of human wisdom." 

He might have added, all wars are due to want 
of human wisdom. War begins where wisdom 
ends. Lord Morley, in the House of Lords, In the 
Moroccan debate, contributed a fine passage on Ger- 
many's position In the world of art, science, and lit- 
erature : 

" Whether France, or Italy, or Germany, or England has 
made the greatest contribution in the history of modern 
civilization — however that speculative controversy may be 
settled, this at least is certain, that those are not wrong who 
hold that Germany's high and strict standard of competency, 
the purity and vigour of her administration of affairs, her 
splendid efforts and great success in all branches of science, 
her glories — for glories they are — in art and literature, 
and the strength and character and duty in the German 
people entitle her national ideals to a supreme place among 
the greatest ideals which now animate and guide the world. 



1 62 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Do not let us forget all that. German ambition is a per- 
fectly intelligible and even lofty ambition. Who can won- 
der that a community which has made the enormous 
advances in every field that Germany has made, certainly 
since 1866, in maritime power and wealth and population, 
should desire to find territories where her surplus population 
may emigrate and establish themselves without losing either 
their nationality or their ideals of modern life. There is 
the place in the sun. In all these great achievements I have 
ventured to enumerate there is the German place in the sun." 

It is SO strange nowadays to think that any re- 
sponsible statesman ever held such views. Lord 
Morley must have heard of Treitschke and Nietzs- 
che, to say nothing of all the other poisoners of 
the German mind. Thus Spake Zarathustra was 
published long before Lord Morley spoke that day 
in the Lords. Prussian militarism was not unknown 
in 191 1, and what Bismarck had said was no For- 
eign Office secret. Let us hope that Lord Morley 
knows the whole truth of the matter now that he has 
had an opportunity of reading the British news- 
papers since the beginning of the war. But then 
he might quote from his own Aphorisms that, 
" People who get their wisdom out of books are 
like those who have got their knowledge of a coun- 
try from the descriptions of travellers. Truth that 
has been picked up from books only sticks to us like 
an artificial limb, or a false tooth, or a rhinoplastic 
nose; the truth we have acquired by our own think- 
ing is like the natural member." 

Early In January, 19 12, the fateful year, Lord 
Rosebery spoke on Foreign Affairs at Glasgow. 
He was no lover of the Franco-British Agreement. 



CRITICS OF FOREIGN POLICY 163 

In Glasgow, after six years of Liberal foreign pol- 
icy, he said: 

" This we do know about our foreign policy, that, for 
good or for evil, we are now embraced in the midst of the 
Continental system. That I regard as perhaps the gravest 
fact in the later portion of my life. We are, for good or 
for evil, involved in a Continental system, the merits of 
which I do not pretend to judge, because I do not know 
enough about it, but which, at any rate, may at any time 
bring us into conflict with armies numbering millions, and 
our own forces w^ould hardly be counted in such a war as 
they stand at present." 

Lord Rosebery was Foreign Secretary of this 
country in 1886 and in 1892. He knew the tradi- 
tions of the Foreign Oflice, and his experience of 
Cabinet affairs fitted him peculiarly as a critic of the 
Foreign Office policy which committed us to a Conti- 
nental system. But he was not the only critic; there 
were many other fully qualified critics of foreign 
policy, who, in 191 2, knew Britain had been en- 
meshed in the Continental system. And Sir Ed- 
ward Grey was fully conscious of the opinion of his 
critics ; 

" I do know that a considerable amount of fault has been 
found with what some people think is and what they call 
my foreign policy, but which, of course, ought not to be 
called my foreign policy because it is quite impossible for 
any individual Foreign Minister to carry out a policy which 
is not also, in its main lines, the policy of the Cabinet of 
which he is a member." 

That statement was true up to a point; but it was 
a little wide of strict accuracy in regard to the au- 



1 64 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

thorization of the conversations between the British 
and French mihtary and naval experts. The Cab- 
inet as a whole was not told until long after the con- 
versations were begun. Anyway, many people 
blamed the Foreign Secretary for the misunderstand- 
ings which existed between Germany and ourselves. 
So deep was the feeling of animosity that the two 
Governments in January consented to the visit of a 
British Minister to Berlin with the object of making 
a frank statement that would dispel the notion that 
Britain had sinister designs on Germany. In the de- 
bate on the address, Mr. Asquith said: 

" Both Governments, the German Government and our 
own, have been and are animated by a sincere desire to 
bring about a better state of understanding. In the course 
of last month we had indications that the visit of a British 
Minister to Berlin would not be unwelcome, and might 
facilitate the attainment of our common object." 

Later in his speech the Prime Minister gave an 
indication of the gravity of the situation which arose 
in the summer and autumn of 1911 : 

" We are told that there are masses of people in Ger- 
many who firmly believe that, at some time or times during 
the summer and autumn of last year we were meditating 
and even preparing an aggressive attack upon their coun- 
try, and that the movements of our fleets were carefully 
calculated with that object in view. I am almost ashamed 
to have to contradict so wild and so extravagant a fiction. 
It is pure invention. There is, I need hardly assure the 
House, not a shadow of foundation for it, nor was there 
anything anywhere, or at any time, of an aggressive or 
provocative character in the movements of our ships. But 
the very fact that such rumours find credence, not, indeed, 
with the German Government, but in the minds of large 



"A REGRETTABLE SYMPTOM" 165 

numbers of intelligent and fair-minded people in Germany, 
is, surely, in itself a significant and most regrettable 
symptom." 

The Prime Minister might have added that it was 
also a regrettable symptom that large masses of in- 
telligent people in our own country had very good 
reason for believing implicitly the same " extrava- 
gant fiction." 

In the Reichstag, the day after the debate in the 
House of Commons, the German Chancellor, Herr 
von Bethmann Hollweg, gave his version of Lord 
Haldane's visit: 

" When the English Minister of War, Lord Haldane, 
was here he talked over with us — without authorization to 
enter into binding agreements, but nevertheless at the in- 
stance of the British Cabinet — the points in which the 
interests of the two countries come into contact — (hear, 
hear, in all parts of the House) — with the object of estab- 
lishing a basis for relations of greater confidence, (Hear, 
hear.) The exchange of views, which was heartily wel- 
comed on our side, took place in numerous conversations of 
an exhaustive and frank description, and will be continued. 
(Cheers.) I do hope that the House will agree with me 
that I cannot at this stage of the matter speak about the 
details. ('Quite right!') But I do not wish to delay in 
communicating to the Reichstag the fact of the conversations 
and the nature of their aims. (General cheers.)" 

The basis for relations of greater confidence was 
blown into the air three months after the visit to 
Berlin. " Strategy must respond to policy," said 
Lord Haldane, on March 21, " the policy of the For- 
eign Office." The navy estimates were introduced 
on March i8th, and they registered a superficial de- 
crease of £307,100, but before the year was over 



1 66 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

there was an Increase of £2,498,624. The two- 
Power standard was abandoned, and a new policy 
directed straight against Germany adopted. In pre- 
senting the estimates to the House, Mr. Churchill 
said: 

*' I propose, with the permission of the House, to lay bare 
to them this afternoon with perfect openness the naval situ- 
ation. It is necessary to do so mainly with reference to 
one Power. I regret that necessity, but nothing is to be 
gained by using indirect modes of expression. On the con- 
trary, the Germans are a people of robust mind, whose 
strong and masculine sense and high courage do not recoil 
from and are not offended by plain and blunt statements of 
fact if expressed with courtesy and sincerity. Anyhow, I 
must discharge my duty to the House and the country. 
The time has come when both nations ought to understand, 
without ill-temper or disguise, what will be the conditions 
under which naval competition will be carried on during 
the next few years." 

It was a bold policy initiated by the new First 
Lord; candour and openness would certainly be wel- 
come features of the new administration. It was 
a good point gained to know it was henceforth un- 
necessary for us to consider France and Russia as a 
combination of naval force against us. There was 
one passage in the speech which was not quite as 
frank as it might have been: 

" All slowing down by Germany will be accompanied 
naturally on our larger scale by us. I have to say ' within 
certain limits,' because, of course, both Great Britain and 
Germany have to consider, among other things, the build- 
ing of other Powers, though the lead of both these coun- 
tries is at present very considerable over any other Power 
besides each other." 



FOR GERMANY TO CONSIDER 167 

If France and Russia, separately or combined, 
were no longer factors, which Britain had to con- 
sider in framing navy estimates, were they not for- 
midable factors to Germany? Her policy was con- 
trolled by the actions of three Powers, one of which, 
Britain, aimed at an overwhelming superiority in 
itself against Germany. The figures for new con- 
struction of France and Russia in that year should 
have proved to Mr. Churchill the utter hopelessness 
of relying on such an argument. Germany had to 
reckon with the nations of the Franco-Russian Al- 
liance, the Anglo-French Agreement, the Anglo- 
Russian Agreement, and the plans of General Staffs 
arising out of the conversations between the British 
and French military and naval experts ; to say noth- 
ing of whatever other secret commitments there 
might be connected with the diplomacy of the En- 
tente Powers. " Strategy must respond to policy, 
the policy of the Foreign Office ! " What earthly 
chance was there for a holiday for a year? Mr. 
Churchill was undoubtedly sincere when he made the 
suggestion; but so long as France and Russia were the 
governing factors in German naval policy the thing 
was impossible. Though we gained a considerable 
amount of kudos for making the suggestion, time 
has shown how futile the notion was from the first. 

The debate on the navy estimates of March, 19 12, 
is worth reading again and again. Lord Charles 
Beresford made a frontal attack of great severity 
on the First Lord, and his speech was of great value 
for the manner in which he proved how much to 
blame we were in inspiring irritation and hatred in 
Germany by our bombast and our methods. He 
quoted many German papers to show how the speech 



1 68 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

of the new First Lord, at Glasgow, earlier in the 
year, was received by the press of the Fatherland, 
and blamed the Admiralty for all the unrest in Ger- 
man naval spheres. Later in the debate Mr. Robert 
Harcourt referred to Bernhardi's book, Germany 
and the Next War: 

" I have read in the last day or two a very interesting 
book, by a German General, General Bernhardi, and it 
bears out a good deal that the noble Lord said. It is not 
a piece of Jingo pamphleteering, but a serious military con- 
sideration of what the writer calls in his title Germany and 
the Next War. It is far more depressing than the worst 
Chauvinistic literature, because it gives a feeling of hope- 
lessness in the unshakable conviction of a representative 
German that we are inspired by active and aggressive ani- 
mosity against his country. I only take a sentence or two 
from that book. He says: 

"'The Moroccan negotiations of the summer of 191 1 
gave an irrefutable demonstration of the unqualified hos- 
tility of England against us. It was clearly shown that 
England is determined to prevent by force every real exten- 
sion of German power. One can scarcely doubt that Eng- 
land is thinking in dead earnest of attacking Germany in 
certain circumstances.' 

" He speaks of the increase of the English fleet as a 
preparation for aggressive war, and he says: 

" ' It is impossible to regard the English preparations as 
merely measures of defence. The English Government 
know well that Germany cannot think on her side of attack- 
ing England, because such an attempt is in itself hope- 
less.' 

" He points out that the Entente with France is really 
a warlike alliance against Germany, and, as to a land war, 
he points out that probably Germany will be supported by 
Austria, though nothing is said about Italy, but he specific- 
ally says that in a sea war it is practically certain that Ger- 



MAKING THE LION ROAR 169 

many will stand absolutely alone, and he repeats again, 
writing, I presume, for the German public, that he regards 
an attack on England as absolutely hopeless. . . . What 
after all has been the result of all these firm resolves and 
panic programmes? Have we frightened Germany out of 
building? Have we even convinced her of our sincerity? 
We have only, apparently, unhappily produced the impres- 
sion, false, as I earnestly believe, of bitter and unrelenting 
hostility. She is firmly convinced that we are forcing her 
deliberately into a position of isolation." 

Not long after the holiday idea was started, Lord 
Haldane, who visited Berlin to allay the fears of the 
Germans as to our naval and military designs, broke 
out in a fresh place, and, in London, in June, he 
said: 

" Keep up a fleet and secure command of the sea, and 
then their problem was a simple one. ... At no distant 
time we ought to be the most powerful military and naval 
nation combined which the world had ever seen." 

Was that one of the sentences used in the " ex- 
haustive " conversations in Berlin at the beginning 
of the year, which gave so much satisfaction to the 
German Chancellor? Surely the rapid changes, the 
comings and goings of Ministers, the fine phrases, 
and polite interchanges, following on the heels of 
bitter recrimination, give some justification to those 
men who jeer at the whole business as a put-up job 
to keep the peoples of Europe and Britain In a state 
of economic slavery; a kind of twentieth century 
Monarchlal League for the preservation of the 
thrones, royal and republican, of European states. 

Then Lord Crewe followed Lord Haldane with 
a little flag waving, presumably to show Germany 



170 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

how keen we were to rest for a year on our naval 
laurels, while Germany lost a year in competition 
with France and Russia. Our superiority, as Lord 
Crewe understood it, when he spoke in the House 
of Lords early in July, was of such a nature that the 
suggestion of a naval holiday must have struck Ger- 
many as a rather cruel joke. Lord Crewe said: 

" So far as our existing position in any part of the world 
is concerned we are not afraid to declare that we consider 
the security of the country is achieved. . . . Taking March 
31st, this year, we find that we have sixteen battleships and 
battle cruisers of the dreadnaught type as against fifteen 
possessed by all other Powers in European waters." 

It was then a period of all-round congratulation 
that the scare, " without the slightest foundation in 
fact," of 1909, had been the means of placing the 
British navy in a position to tackle the Triple Al- 
liance and a few smaller states thrown in. Minis- 
ters, however, did not stop to consider what the 
other side of the account was: the effect on Ger- 
many. They did not see the items the other page 
would bear within three years. Visualization is not 
a Ministerial gift. The prophecy of Bernhardi was 
not a subject for Cabinet discussion, and the repeated 
warnings of the British pacifists were contemptuously 
flung aside by the " apostles of peace " as mere 
drivel of drooling millennialists. 

The naval position in the Mediterranean was the 
subject of a debate in the Lords later in July. Lord 
Haldane admitted the country was face to face with 
one of the most trying naval situations tlj^t had ex- 
isted for a very long time : 

" The Government have made up their minds that the 



A TRUST BETRAYED 171 

position of this country depends on sea power. We have 
told the only Power which is our rival — we have told them 
in the most friendly fashion — that that is our view, and 
whatever efforts may be put forth, they must reckon on our 
making efforts still greater than any they make." 

The German-speaking amateur diplomatist, as he 
was referred to by the Opposition leader, gave a 
comic touch to a friendly bit of advice. Still, it is 
hard to believe such a statement could be made by 
Lord Haldane only six months after his visit to 
Berlin. Anyway, it was a sad commentary on the 
suggestion for a naval holiday. 

At this time there is perhaps no sadder reflection 
one can indulge in than the position of the masses 
in Europe from 191 2 to the middle of July, 19 14. 
In Britain at any rate the millions of workers went 
about their business utterly oblivious of the Conti- 
nental danger. Those who addressed large audi- 
ences frequently can testify there was no notion of 
war in the minds of the people. Safe in the idea 
that a great navy was our supreme insurance against 
strife, they laughed at the prognostications of the 
orators of the Lord Roberts school. Ireland was 
the topic one party dealt with, almost to the ex- 
clusion of all others. Sir Edward Carson bemoaned 
the fact that all his labours could not rouse the Brit- 
ish electorate out of their profound apathy and un- 
willingness to regard that question from his point 
of view. They knew nothing of the imminence of 
battle. No Minister warned them; labour leaders 
were as ignorant as themselves of our jeopardy in 
being entangled in the Continental system. The 
wealth-producers of these islands, somehow, in a 
strange subconscious way, relied on a Liberal Gov- 



172 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ernment keeping them out of the toils of rotten di- 
plomacy and the schemes of militarists. Their 
faith, their patience, their credulousness, are quali- 
ties that make one sad to think on now that their 
homes are making vast sacrifices of bread-winners, 
and, later on, the weak ones left behind will have 
to bear the greater part of the cost. There were 
warnings, but as they came not from members of 
the Government little heed was paid to them. In 
the House of Commons, on the Defence Vote, in 
Committee of Supply, Mr. Bonar Law said: 

" My instinct tells me that there is no danger; but my 
reason, such as it is, is in conflict with instinct. But when 
I use my judgment as best I can in considering what the 
facts of the position are, I say deliberately that in my judg- 
ment Lord Roberts did not exaggerate when he said the 
other day that this country had never been in a position of 
greater peril." 

What did Lord Roberts know? Was his alarm 
occasioned because we were, as Lord Rosebery said, 
for good or for evil, now embraced in the midst of 
the Continental system? Did Lord Roberts knew 
that an outbreak of hostilities on the Continent, no 
matter how slight the cause, might at any time drag 
us into a great European struggle? What peril 
were we in? And why were we in peril? Was all 
Lord Roberts' activity, in urging the Government to 
adopt drastic military changes, for the purpose of 
raising an army large enough to meet all require- 
ments of our commitments? Did Lord Roberts 
know that we were committed to the obligations of 
war, and that we were bound to assist France, if 
she were attacked by a third Power? The secrets 



WHY GERMANY ALONE? 173 

of foreign policy, no matter how well they are kept 
from the rank and file of the House and the general 
public, are often enough the common property of a 
certain class whose connections are always in touch 
with the departments and the great armament firms. 
It is " not in the interest of the pubHc " to answer 
questions in the House, when a member asks for 
information from Ministers which has been the 
gossip of clubs and dinner tables. This Govern- 
ment has treated the private members of the House, 
as to foreign policy and naval affairs, as if they were 
Sunday-school scholars not of an age to read Deu- 
teronomy. Why, even the girls at Queen's College 
had the benefit of the militant and brilliant Cramb! 
In July, 19 1 2, just two years before the first 
despatch from Germany in the White Paper, Mr. 
Churchill made a statement on the Supplementary 
Naval Estimates, on our position in the North Sea 
and in the Mediterranean. In this amazing addi- 
tion to the estimates introduced in the year of the 
Berlin visit, and the year of the suggested holiday, 
we find the First Lord striking out in another direc- 
tion, not because the new German Navy Law, be it 
observed, increased in new construction of capital 
ships, but because of the increase of striking force 
of ships of all classes available at all seasons of the 
year. Here it should be pointed out that there had 
been no increase at all in the money spent by Ger- 
many on new construction: in 191 1 she spent £11,- 
710,859, in 1912, £11,491,187, in 1913, £11,010,- 
883, and in 19 14, £10,316,264. A steady reduction 
in the figures for new construction. But suppose all 
the arguments laid down by the First Lord were 
accepted; was it fair, in making a statement of the 



174 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

position in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean, 
to lead the country to believe that Germany alone 
was the factor which affected our policy? The Cab- 
inet must have known in July that the plans of the 
British and French General Staffs were complete, 
and that we should have to defend the northern and 
western coasts of France while her fleet was con- 
centrated in the Mediterranean. Did Germany 
know that much? What are military and naval at- 
taches for if they fail to learn facts of that nature? 
Anyway, in times of peace it is no difficult business 
for one navy to know pretty accurately the general 
disposition of another, particularly when that other 
navy happens to be its chief rival. 

A thousand rushing currents were carrying us on 
in the autumn of 1912 to the European whirlpool. 
Lord Roberts and Lord Curzon, in October, spoke, 
at Manchester, on Compulsory Military Service. 
The feeling abroad had been intensely aggravated 
by the trend of events in Britain, but the speech of 
Lord Roberts did even more to create deep bitter- 
ness than the policy of our Admiralty. He said: 

"Now at the present day, in the year 1912, just as in 
1866 and just as in 1870, war will take place the instant 
the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority 
at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human 
calculation can be made certain. ' Germany strikes when 
Germany's hour has struck.' That is the time-honoured 
policy of her Foreign Office. That was the policy relent- 
lessly pursued by Bismarck and Moltke in 1866 and in 
1870; it has been her policy decade by decade since that 
date; it is her policy at the present hour. And, gentlemen, 
it is an excellent policy. It is, or should be, the policy of 
every nation prepared to play a great part in history." 



THE PUBLIC — MOSTLY FOOLS 175 

This speech was not only deeply resented in Brit- 
ain; it caused in Germany an acrimonious flood of 
comment to be poured out in her press. Our own 
Evening Standard said such language would be 
" scarcely justifiable if it (Germany) were at open 
war with us." In the House several members raised 
at question time the wisdom of a Field Marshal of the 
British army making such speeches, but they got little 
encouragement from the Foreign Secretary and the 
Minister for War. The Foreign Secretary icily de- 
clined to do anything. Lord Roberts was free to 
go up and down the country breathing out threaten- 
ings and slaughter against Germany, but Tom Mann 
had to cool his heels in a cell for giving soldiers the 
advice of Tolstoy! The bitter agitation of the con- 
scriptionists continued all through the autumn, and 
Germany was the one country referred to in their 
bellicose speeches. The men who fomented war 
were " apostles of peace " and true Englishmen, the 
men who worked for peace were traitors and 
cowards. It was an edifying spectacle; one to make 
a cage full of monkeys silent with envy. And the 
public thought little about it. Well might Chamfort 
cry, " The public ! — how many fools does it take to 
make a public? " The position at the end of 19 12, 
and some events that followed hard upon that year, 
remind one of the agitation of the Corinthians in 
the first book of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War. 

" It becomes you rather, on many accounts, with manly 
confidence to declare for war. The oracle of a god pre- 
scribes it; that god himself has promised his assistance; and 
the rest of Greece is ready to join you in the contest, some 
from a principle of fear, and some from a principle of 
interest. Neither on you will the first breach of the peace 



176 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

be charged. The god who advises war plainly judges that 
to be already broken: you will only act to redress its viola- 
tion : for the breach is not to be charged on those who armed 
to revenge it; but on those who were the first aggressors. 
Since then war, considered in every light, appears honour- 
able in regard to you, ye Lacedaemonians: since we with 
united voices, encourage you to it, as most strongly requisite 
for our general and separate interests, defer no longer to 
succour the Potidaeans, Dorians by descent, and besieged by 
lonians (the reverse was formerly the case), and to recover 
again the liberty of others. The business will admit of no 
longer delay, when some already feel the blow; and others, 
if it once be- known that we met here together, and durst 
not undertake our own defence, will in a very little time 
be sensible of the same. Reflect within yourselves, confed- 
erates, that affairs are come to extremities: that we have 
suggested, the most advisable measures; and give your ballot 
for war. Be not terrified at its immediate dangers; but 
animate yourselves with the hope of a long-lasting peace to 
be procured by it; for a peace produced by war is ever the 
most firm; but from tranquillity and ease to be averse to 
war, can by no means abate or dissipate our danger. With 
this certain conclusion, that a state in Greece is started up 
into a tyrant, and aims indifferently at the liberty of us all, 
her arbitrary plan being partly executed, and partly in agi- 
tation — let us rush against, and at once pull her down." 

We know well what happened to the Lacedae- 
monians. 

Nineteen hundred and twelve was undoubtedly a 
fateful year for Great Britain, and November in 
that year was a fateful month. Wild speeches were 
delivered up and down the country on the navy and 
the territorial forces. On November 14th, London 
was struck by a Tory orgy. There was a meeting at 
the Albert Hall for the leaders of the Opposition; at 



INTERESTING INTERCHANGE 177 

the Queen's Hall one for the back-benchers; and 
at the Hippodrome another for Mr. R. G. Knowles 
the comedian, and the Ulster party. It was a great 
night in the history of empire. At the Queen's Hall 
Lord Percy gave his audience a shock: 

" It would require courage to tell the country the truth 
that they are living in a ' fool's paradise,' and that it was 
not merely our army but the army of France which was our 
present defence against German invasion. And it was a 
base betrayal of our obligations not to be able to support 
France with an adequate military force of our own." 

That was a pretty strong statement to make by 
one who was not remotely connected with the For- 
eign Office when the Anglo-French Agreement was 
drawn up. Precisely what effect that statement 
had upon the Government is hard to tell, but it is 
nevertheless true that eight days after it was made 
Sir Edward Grey wrote to the French ambas- 
sador, M. Cambon, reminding him of the under- 
standing of January, 1906, authorizing conversa- 
tions to take place between French and British mili- 
tary and naval experts. The letter stated that the 
experts had consulted together from time to time, 
and though nothing of a binding nature limited the 
actions of either Government, in the event of one 
of the countries being attacked by a third Power they 
would immediately discuss whether both Govern- 
ments should act together; further, if the measures in- 
volved action, the Governments would at once take 
into consideration the plans of the General Staffs. 
M. Cambon replied confirming the terms of the 
agreement. Why Sir Edward Grey should ex- 
change letters with the French ambassador at that 



178 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

time on this grave matter, is hard to tell, unless the 
speech of Lord Percy had embarrassed the Foreign 
Office; but there seems to have been no other rea- 
son. There was a rumour in London before the 
19th, to the effect that German reservists in the 
United Kingdom had received notice that they might 
be required to return to Germany within twenty-four 
hours. Questions were asked in the House of Com- 
mons as to the disposition of the fleet in the Mediter- 
ranean and the number of ships there to guard Brit- 
ish interests. Mr. Churchill said there were only 
three armoured cruisers there, if account was not 
taken of those refitting at Gibraltar, between Octo- 
ber 17th and November 3rd. Mr. Yerburgh asked 
whether it was the policy of the Government at the 
beginning of the year, and before the introduction 
of the naval estimates, practically to withdraw our 
battleships from the Mediterranean; but the First 
Lord declined to deal with the question. Sir Ed- 
ward Grey in his letter to the French ambassador 
pointed out that the disposition of the French and 
British fleets respectively at that moment was not 
based upon an engagement to co-operate in war. 
That was surely a most extraordinary statement for 
the Foreign Secretary to make. Was it true? Lord 
Haldane dubbed the Foreign Secretary, " Com- 
mander of the Forces," and he also told us that 
" strategy depends on policy, the policy of the For- 
eign Office." Yet our command of the Mediter- 
ranean, three weeks before he wrote to M. Cambon, 
amounted to an effective force of only three ar- 
moured cruisers, which the First Lord considered an 
ample fleet. Evidently the plans of General Staffs 
were well in hand at that time, and it was left to 



BELGIUM BESTIRS HERSELF 179 

France to look after the Mediterranean while we de- 
voted our naval attention to the northern coasts of 
France and the North Sea. How far the plans of 
General Staffs operated we may never know, but it 
is a significant fact that an event of an extraordinary 
nature happened in Belgium just about the time the 
Foreign Secretary exchanged letters with M. Cam- 
bon. 

In November, 19 12, the Belgian House of Par- 
liament held a secret sitting at the instance of the 
Belgian King in order to consider urgent precaution- 
ary measures. King Albert had become possessed 
of facts of a threatening nature. These he disclosed 
to the Parliament, which listened attentively to his 
warnings, and immediately adopted a drastic mili- 
tary programme which had been delayed for thirty 
years, and which King Leopold II had advocated in 
vain. The drastic programme raised the war 
strength of the Belgian army to 150,000 for the 
field army, 60,000 for auxiliary services, and 130,- 
000 for garrisons; 340,000 men in all. A gigantic 
force for a country of seven and a half millions; 
and when it is understood that Belgium was believed 
to be protected by five great Powers from aggres- 
sion, such a military force needs a deal of ex- 
planation. 

Now what had Belgium to fear In 191 2? She 
knew that three of the signatories of the Treaty of 
1839 were allied, and that Germany was not work- 
ing amicably with the Entente Powers. It is scarcely 
believable that her Foreign Office did not know that 
the French and British military and naval experts 
were formulating plans for the General Staffs. But 
did Belgium know that these plans included the pos- 



i8o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

siblllty of her territory being used as the battlefield 
of a war with Germany against the Entente Powers? 
Was it not common talk in military circles that in the 
event of a war between Germany and France that 
Germany would be forced to invade Belgium? 
Could the plans of General Staffs, in the circum- 
stances, leave Belgium out of consideration? As- 
suredly not. The notion is too utterly preposterous 
to waste arguments upon for a moment. There was 
only one route for rapid advance Germany could 
take and that was through Belgium. 

The information the King of the Belgians had to 
impart to his Parliament was closely connected with 
the subject of the letters exchanged by Sir Edward 
Grey and M. Cambon. From the facts it is plain 
that neither France nor Great Britain was in a posi- 
tion to protect her neutrality and independence. 
And to compare what was done by Lord Granville 
in 1870 with the present crisis, Is to Ignore the fact 
that Great Britain in 1870 had no agreement with 
either France or Germany. She was then in a posi- 
tion to Insist on the signatories of the Treaty of 1839 
observing the neutrality of Belgium. All the talk 
of Ministers on this point, since the end of July, 
1 9 14, has not been worth the ink to print it. 

It was laid down in 1908 by the Foreign Secretary 
that: 

" We cannot recognize the right of any Power or State 
to alter an international treaty without the consent of the 
other parties to it. We cannot ourselves recognize the result 
of any such action till the other Powers have been consulted, 
including especially in this case Turkey, who is one of the 
other Powers most closely concerned. Because, if it is to 
become the practice in foreign politics that any single Power 



*' SANCTITY OF TREATIES " 



I8I 



or State can at will make abrupt violations of international 
treaties, you will undermine public confidence. . . . You 
cannot expect to see expenditure on armaments diminished 
if people live under the apprehension that treaties can be 
suddenly altered without the consent of all the Powers who 
are parties to them." 

It Is to be regretted that the spirit as well as the 
letter of an essential principle of the law of nations, 
subscribed to by the Powers in London In 1871 
(which Is the law upon which the Foreign Secretary 
based his statement) was not followed by Britain in 
every diplomatic affair since 1904. 



CHAPTER IX 

" NOT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST " 

" Somewhere there are still people and herds, but not with 
us, my brethren: with us there are states. 

The state? What is that? Well! now open your ears, 
for now I deliver my sentence on the death of peoples. 

The state is called the coldest of all cold monsters. And 
coldly it lieth; and this lie creepeth out of its mouth: * I, 
the state, am the people.' 

It is a lie! Creators they were who created the peoples 
and hung one belief and one love over them; thus they 
served life. 

Destroyers they are who lay traps for many, calling them 
the state: they hung a sword and a hundred desires over 
them. 

Whatever a people is left, it understandeth not the state 
but hateth it as the evil eye and a sin against customs and 
rights. 

This sign I show unto you: every people speaketh its own 
tongue of good and evil — not understood by its neighbour. 
Every people hath found out for itself its own language in 
customs and rights. 

But the state is a liar in all tongues of good or evil: 
whatever it saith, it lieth; w^hatever it hath, it hath stolen. 

False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the 
biting one. False are even its intestines. 

Confusion of languages of good and evil. This sign I 
show unto you as the sign of the state. Verily, this sign 
pointeth to the will unto death! Verily, it waveth hands 
unto the preachers of death! 

182 



VAIN IMAGINATIONS 183 

Far too many are born: for the superfluous the state was 
invented. 

Behold, behold, how It allureth them, the much-too-many! 
How it devoureth, cheweth, and masticateth them ! " 

— Nietzsche. 

It Is not necessary to go further back than 191 1, 
the first year of this Parliament, for evidence of 
the Foreign Office and the Admiralty's method of 
hoodwinking members and shielding their own 
systems of evasion, hyperbole, and secrecy. This 
Government is not the first to set up absolutist sys- 
tems in the departments, but from Liberal statesmen 
the mass of people expect democratic treatment. 
When Toryism finished its mad career in 1905, the 
vast majority of the electorate imagined Tory meth- 
ods would be interred with the party. *' Not in the 
public interest," was the phrase it was thought might 
satisfy over-curious Conservatives, but Radicals were 
not to be put off with cryptadia. However galling 
it may be to make such an admission in these " demo- 
cratic " days, it must be confessed that the House 
of Lords Is not the only place that thrives upon an 
hereditary system. All departments more or less 
live and move and have their being just as prolific 
noble houses do; with this difference, of course, that 
permanent officials are not so easily shifted. He- 
redity Is the evil Influence which has destroyed De- 
mocracy; and now, like Oswald Alvlng, It Is struck 
down just as It was about to ask for the sun. Yes, 
continuity of the diplomatic errors of our predeces- 
sors Is the reason for our deplorable position in 
Europe. 

In the early days of the first session of this Par- 
liament the Government hung up the stereotyped text, 



1 84 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

" Not in the public interest," to scare off the inquisi- 
tive. A private member asked the Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs whether he had responded to the 
speech of the German Chancellor (in which was ex- 
pressed the opinion that an open and confident ex- 
change of views would do much to remove suspicion 
arising from naval and military expenditure) and 
whether he could lay upon the table of the House 
any papers relating thereto? The Under-Secretary 
replied that the informal discussions were continuing, 
and the Government hoped that they would " help 
to promote the maintenance and growth of the ex- 
isting friendly relations between the two countries " ; 
but, " it would not be in the public interest to lay 
papers." 

To understand thoroughly how thick a barrier 
members had to pierce to get at the source of infor- 
mation which determined the action of the Admir- 
alty in 1909 (to build the four extra ships) one has 
only to look through the long series of questions put 
to Mr. McKenna, and the evasive replies given by 
him during the first weeks of the session. Behind 
the sign, " Not in the public interest," the Govern- 
ment hid their errors of judgment and all the crimi- 
nal machinations of the scaremongers outside the 
House. Publicity is considered to be one of the 
blessings of our Parliamentary procedure; but there 
are affairs of vital interest to the public that private 
members cannot get at: and, on the other hand, 
probably because of the congestion of business, 
floods of oratory unstemmed for at least eight hours 
a day for four days each week, and much is over- 
looked by the press that should for mere party rea- 
sons be given to the public. Sometimes a question 



A LIE, AND ITS RESULTS 185 

Is put which contains matter of deep Importance to 
the people, but a non-committal reply, or an evasive 
answer, checks the interest it would have If revela- 
tion and not secrecy were the chief aim and desire 
of Ministers. Take the following question and re- 
ply which passed almost without comment In the 
House and the press. The date was March 8th, 
1911 : 

" Mr. Jowett asked the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs if, during his term of office, any undertaking, promise, 
or understanding had been given to France that, in certain 
eventualities, British troops would be sent to assist the opera- 
tions of the French army? 

"Mr. McKinnon Wood (Under-Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs) : ' The answer is in the negative.' " 

Numbers of members knew the answer was un- 
true, but not even a single supplementary question 
was put. The sacred veil over foreign affairs must 
not be torn aside. It Is, however, more than prob- 
able the Under-Secretary believed the answer he 
gave was quite true. We know now the answer 
should have been, " Yes ! " But If that answer had 
been given there would have been great diplomatic 
trouble In the chancelleries of Europe; and, which 
is of deeper concern, the Government would have 
suffered an immediate storm of protest from the ver- 
tebrata of the Liberal party in the country. Many 
members were loath to press the question because 
they had nothing but rumour to go on; and there was, 
besides, this to be considered, namely: the pledges 
given to the constituencies to support the Govern- 
ment in bringing certain first-class measures of re- 
form to the Statute Book. This was indeed the 



1 86 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ever-restraining reason why so many Radicals did 
not vote against the Government on naval expendi- 
ture. So the complexities and the multiplicities of 
our Parliamentary system make it an almost impos- 
sible feat for a member at all times to vote accord- 
ing to his conscience. The legislator after all is the 
real Jesuit. 

Foreign Affairs got precious little discussion in 
the House in 191 1. In 19 10 there was less; no 
Foreign Office vote was put down that year. Many 
complaints on all sides of the House were heard, 
that so little opportunity should be given to members 
to worm a statement of policy out of the Foreign 
Secretary. The Anglo-Russian Agreement was 
made the subject of severe criticism on a day when 
the debate on Foreign Affairs was interrupted at a 
quarter past eight by a long discussion on a railway 
bill ! But, if foreign affairs got little attention, the 
army certainly came in for particular notice; and 
Mr. Haldane's reorganization of the Expeditionary 
Force was subjected to criticism from the militarists. 
It was awkward for the Minister for War to deal 
effectively with the censure poured upon him, for 
the debate was more in the nature of a sham fight 
than a real battle. One felt that Mr. Haldane was 
doing the best he could to meet the demands of Gen- 
eral Staffs; but that it would never do to carry out 
all the suggestions of the military experts for fear 
of alarming his own party, who knew nothing about 
the secret understanding the Foreign Secretary had 
made with the French Government. Several Op- 
position members found it very difficult to make 
headway against the secret; and in their speeches 
only slight references were made to the Expedition- 



UNEASY SUSPICIONS 187 

ary Force having to meet Continental armies. Some 
members frankly said its numbers were insufficient; 
Sir Reginald Pole-Carew said, " it would be murder 
to send them." 

The navy estimates brought about one of the most 
instructive debates of the session. Private members 
on the Liberal side completely riddled the forecasts 
of Ministers made in 1909 and 19 10, as to the naval 
position of Germany, though they were unable to 
check the headlong rush of our armaments. That 
debate was particularly interesting; for in it Mr. 
Dillon, in referring to France, proved himself a 
far bolder man than all the Opposition soldiers were 
In the debate on the army. Mr. Dillon said: 

'* ' I interjected an observation on Monday in the speech 
of one of the speakers who was talking about this question 
of building against the Triple Alliance, and who insisted 
for the safety of this Empire, on building against the Triple 
Alliance, I said, What about France? I thought that one 
of the glories of the British Government had been that it 
had formed an Entente with France.' 

" Mr. Lee : ' It is not the same thing as an alliance.* 
" Mr. Dillon : ' I should like to know what it is. Some 
of us have had very uneasy feelings since the other day we 
read that M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister for France, 
spoke of constant military conversations going on with Eng- 
land. I say that there is a very uncomfortable feeling among 
many honourable members that there is a secret alliance with 
France, or some understanding which is not known to the 
members of this House, and if we are to be told that that 
is the result of all these alliances and understandings, this 
country must be prepared to build not according to the two 
Power standard, but up to the three Power standard which 
was put forward here to-night.' " 

Why Mr. Dillon should be alarmed at a state- 



1 88 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

merit made by the French Foreign Secretary (when 
in answer to a question put by Mr. Jowett only eight 
weeks earlier our own Foreign Secretary said that 
no undertalcing, promise, or understanding, had been 
given to France) was very strange. Perhaps Mr. 
Dillon did not believe our Foreign Secretary. Any- 
way, he showed a superb disregard for the courtesies 
which should acknowledge the privilege of all public 
departments to keep their secrets from private mem- 
bers. 

A fortnight after Mr. Dillon's reference to the 
statements made by M. Pichon, the French Foreign 
Minister, Mr. Jowett put another question to the 
Foreign Secretary: 

" Mr. Jowett asked the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, if, when he came into office, there was in existence 
any understanding or undertaking, expressed or implied, in 
virtue of which Great Britain would be under obligations to 
France to send troops, in certain eventualities, to assist the 
operations of the French army? 

" Sir Edward Grey : ' The extent of the obligations to 
which Great Britain was committed was that expressed or 
implied in the Anglo-French Convention laid before Parlia- 
ment. There was no other engagement bearing on the 
subject.' " 

The Cabinet perhaps acted on the method of 
Solon who in his original constitution denied the 
people initiative, and allowed them only to propose 
what had first been thoroughly considered and ap- 
proved by the senate. Let us say then that in 
March, 191 1, the Cabinet were not agreed on the 
matter referred to in Mr. Jowett's question, and the 
time had not arrived for letting the House into the 
confidence of the Foreign Secretary. But then there 



SUPPRESSIO VERI 189 

is this to be remembered: Did all the Cabinet in 
March, 191 1, know any more than Mr. Jowett? 

For an example of the Government's method of 
hanging out the sign, " Not in the public interest," 
the following is hard to beat: 

" Mr. Yerburgh asked the Prime Minister whether, in 
stating in his speech on our standard of naval strength on 
26th May, 1909, that the end was to ensure for this country 
in any conceivable condition, and against all possible hazards, 
unassailable naval superiority which would give us complete 
command of the sea, and make any attempt to interfere with 
any part of the Empire or sea-borne commerce an impossi- 
bility, he is to be understood as ruling out of calculation, in 
computing our requisite naval strength, the fleets of any 
other Power with whom we may, at the time, be on terms 
of intimate friendship? 

" The Prime Minister : * I do not think that matters 
of this kind can be conveniently or adequately dealt with by 
question and answer. I can only refer the hon. member to 
the speech which he quotes and to the speech made on the 
same occasion by the First Lord of the Admiralty.' 

" Mr. Arthur Lee: ' Is the right hon. gentleman aware 
that in his absence an entirely new definition of the two- 
Power standard was laid down by the Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs ? ' 

" The Prime Minister: * I am not aware of that.' 

"Mr. Yerburgh: 'May I ask whether or not we are 
to understand that the Government arrived at no decision 
upon this particular question? Is the right hon. gentleman 
not aware that this is a question of supreme importance, and 
that in arriving at our standard of naval strength previous 
governments had regard to the power of the fleets of other 
countries ? ' 

" The Prime Minister: ' I think this question shows the 
inconvenience of dealing with these matters by way of ques- 
tion and answer.' 



190 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

"Mr. James Hope: 'May I ask whether it takes a 
longer time to make a battleship or an enemy? ' " 

Most pertinent this last question, and not easily 
answered; one indeed requiring notice. 

On the motion for adjournment for the Easter re- 
cess, Mr. Swift MacNeill raised the subject of 
secrecy in foreign affairs. He said: 

" From generation to generation, you have allowed 
treaties involving the highest international obligations — in- 
volving questions of peace and war — to be taken absolutely 
out of the hands of the House. It is no exaggeration to say, 
so far as international policy is concerned, you have rendered 
the House as little effectively powerful as any man walking 
over Westminster Bridge. Over and over again treaties 
involving matters of life and death, involving questions of 
first-class importance, have been ratified behind the back of 
Parliament. . . . The people themselves must be allowed to 
know all about this diplomacy and what it is. And there 
should be no secrecy in regard to high diplomatic statecraft 
about it. The House of Commons is ample judge of what 
is discreet and what is indiscreet, and it is a complete ab- 
surdity for others to treat us as children or for us to allow 
ourselves to be so treated in matters of such high interna- 
tional importance as those involving questions of peace and 
war." 

The Foreign Secretary replied that there must be 
secrecy up to a certain point, and that the ratification 
of treaties was one of far too great importance to be 
discussed on an occasion of that kind; and he asked 
the House to bear in mind that not until the House 
of Commons was really free to devote itself to the 
discussions of Imperial affairs would it get control. 

The House had not long to wait for an illustra- 
tion of the gravity of the charge directed by Mr. 



WHO NEEDED SUCCOUR? 191 

Swift MacNeill against the Foreign Office. On 
May 2nd, 191 1, a question was put down concerning 
the French expedition to Fez : 

" Mr. Dillon asked the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs whether the British Government had been consulted 
by the French Government in reference to the proposed 
military operations against Fez; and whether the British 
Government had in any way approved or made itself re- 
sponsible for this attack on the independence of the Empire 
of Morocco? 

" The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Edward 
Grey) : ' His Majesty's Government have been informed 
by the French Government of the measures which are being 
adopted for the succour of Europeans in Fez, and they under- 
stand that information has also been given to other Govern- 
ments. The action taken by France is not intended to alter 
the political status of Morocco, and His Majesty's Govern- 
ment cannot see why any objection should be taken to it.' " 

Now who were the Europeans to be succoured? 
Well, in the first place they were not in Fez. In the 
second place they were all powerful enough to dis- 
pense with the services of the British Government. 
Many of the people asking succour were great bank- 
ers, armament makers, British newspaper corre- 
spondents, philanthropic millionaires intimately con- 
nected with royalties, and sundry " representatives " 
of the people. Succour! these were the gangs that 
bled Morocco to death. Anyway, the military op- 
erations of the French against Fez were merely steps 
taken to destroy that " scrap of paper," the Al- 
geciras Act. The secret articles of 1904 were not 
then made public. So when His Majesty's Govern- 
ment could not see why any objection should be taken 
to the military operations against Fez, the British 



192 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Government were really fulfilling all the obligations 
of its secret diplomacy, knowing the public of Britain 
would acquiesce because it would be misinformed by 
the Jingo press in league with the advertising de- 
[' partment of the Foreign Office. 

What really went on in and about Fez has been 
fully described by M. Francis de Pressense : 

" At this point the Comite du Maroc and its organs sur- 
passed themselves. They organized a campaign of systematic 
untruth. Masters of almost the entire press, they swamped 
the public with false news. Fez was presented as threatened 
by siege or sack. A whole European French Colony was 
suddenly discovered there, living in anguish. The ultimate 
fate of the women and children was described in the most 
moving terms. ... At all costs the Europeans, the Sultan, 
Fez itself must be saved. ... As ever from the beginning 
of this enterprise, the Government knew nothing, willed 
nothing of itself. With a salutary dread of complications it 
would have preferred not to move, perhaps, even, had it 
dared, to withdraw from the hornet's nest. But the greater 
fears it experienced from another quarter prevailed; those 
inculcated by the so-called patriotic shoutings, the concerted 
clamours of the orchestra of which the Comite du Maroc 
holds the baton, and whose chief performers are to be found 
in Le Temps and Le Matin. The order to advance was 
given. . . . Already while the expedition was on its way, 
light began to pierce. Those redoubtable rebels who were 
threatening Fez had disappeared like the dew in the morning. 
Barely did a few ragged horsemen fire off a shot or two 
before turning around and riding away at a furious gallop. 
A too disingenuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the 
show away. The expeditionary force complains, he gravely 
records, of the absence of the enemy ; the approaching harvest 
season is keeping all the healthy males in the fields! Thus 
did the phantom so dexterously conjured by the Comite du 
Maroc for the benefit of its aims disappear in a night. . . . 



OFFICIAL BLINDNESS 193 

Avowals and disclosures then began in right earnest. One 
of the correspondents who had contributed his share to the 
concert of lying news, wrote with an admirable sang-froid 
that, in truth, there had been some exaggeration, that, in 
point of fact, at no moment had the safety of Fez and its 
inhabitants been seriously menaced ; that the idea of a regu- 
lar siege and of a sudden capture had been alike chimerical 
and that, moreover, so far as the provisioning of the place 
was concerned, he could reassure the most timorous that 
there was sufficient corn in the city to feed the whole popu- 
lation, plus the expeditionary column, for more than a year! 
The farce was played. After Casablanca, Fez! France 
without realizing it, without wishing it, almost without know- 
ing it, had taken a decisive step. An indefinite occupation 
of the capital was the natural prelude to a Protectorate. ' 
For the clever men who had invented and executed the \ 
scenario there only now remained the task of reaping the 
fruit of their efforts. The era of concessions, profits, divi- 
dends, was about to open. Premature joyfulness! It was 
the era of difficulties which was at hand." 

His Majesty's Government could not see why any 
objection should be taken to it ! The Foreign Office 
could not see that it marked the beginning of the end 
of European peace! 

But the people are helpless. They are being ) 
ground to powder every day by the diplomatic ma- \ 
chine which never in the history of European affairs ^ 
consummated a single treaty that worked for the real 
benefit of the people. Juggernaut! Look where 
the car has passed across the fair plain of western 
Europe. Who can describe the woe this Kumbha- 
karna has wrought! Not until " a crescent-headed 
arrow from Rama's bow " strikes down the foul Idol, 
which Bright fifty years ago thought overthrown, 
will the people know any rest from war. 



194 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

As an example of how quickly news travels across 
the desert to the House of Commons when British 
" interests " are in " danger," and how easy it is for 
" British subjects " who are not in danger to find 
British legislators eager to force the Government 
to move something of an extensive military character 
to protect them, the following taken from Hansard, 
April 25th, 191 1, is a gem: 

"Major Archer-Shee: 'I beg to ask the Secretary of 
State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House 
as to the number of British subjects residing in Fez at the 
present time, and what steps the Government propose tak- 
ing to safeguard British interests in that part of Morocco? ' 

" Mr. McKinnon Wood (Under Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs) : ' The number of British subjects resid- 
ing at Fez on March 27th, 191 1, apart from persons of 
Moorish parentage, was ten. Of these, six were women and 
two were children. His Majesty's Government do not 
contemplate any active measures. They consider that the 
arrangements being made under French supervision will 
afford the necessary protection to British subjects at Fez. 
No special measures appear to be called for to safeguard 
British interests in that part of Morocco.' 

"Mr. Dillon; 'Has the Government any information 
which would give them cause for believing that there is any 
danger to Europeans?' 

" Mr. McKinnon Wood: ' No, we have no such infor- 
mation.' 

"Mr. Remnant: * May I ask whether any representa- 
tions have been made to the French Government to carry 
out the suggestions? ' 

" Mr. McKinnon Wood : * No representations have been 
made to the French Government.' 

"Major Archer-Shee: 'May I ask whether it Is In- 
tended to co-operate with other Governments should It be- 
come necessary to send a large force to pacify Morocco ? ' 



PLEDGING THE "INTERESTS" 195 

" Mr. McKinnon Wood : ' No occasion has arisen to 
make us contemplate any such action.' 

"Mr. Remnant: 'May I ask the hon. gentleman 
whether he will ask the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs whether it is his intention to make representations, 
and, if so, whether he will do so at once ? ' 

" Mr. McKinnon Wood : * There is no necessity to 
make representations.' 

"Major Archer-Shee: * In view of the unsatisfactory 
nature of the reply, I beg leave to move the adjournment 
of the House to call attention to a definite matter of urgent 
public importance, namely, the attitude to be adopted by 
this country in the event of extensive military operations 
being required for the pacification of Morocco.' 

"Mr. Dillon: 'This is for the purpose of creating a 
scare.' " 

Major Archer-Shee did not get the adjournment 
of the House. But the ten British subjects in Fez 
must have been deeply grateful to the British legis- 
lators who were so anxious to protect them when 
they were in no danger. And no doubt British " in- 
terests " felt under a debt which we hope was paid 
according to service rendered. What Is the good 
of having a Foreign Office If It cannot be urged by 
members of the House of Commons to do something 
for British " interests " ? 

On May 23rd, the Foreign Secretary said the 
French Government had no choice but to relieve Fez 
with the least possible delay. When Mr. Dillon 
asked whether the House was not entitled to know 
to what extent this country was committed to " this 
Ill-omened and cruel expedition," the Foreign Sec- 
retary replied, " We are not committed at all." 
The secret articles and letters connected with the 
Anglo-French Agreement were not yet made public. 



196 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

But Article VIII of the Agreement of 1904, stated, 
" The Agreement which may be come to on the sub- 
ject between France and Spain shall be communi- 
cated to His Britannic Majesty's Government." A 
convention was drawn up between France and Spain 
on October 3rd, 1904, for the partition of Morocco. 
A copy of this secret treaty was sent by the French 
ambassador to Lord Lansdowne, who in acknowl- 
edging it said, " I need not say that the confidential 
character of the Convention entered into by the 
President of the French Republic and the King of 
Spain in regard to French and Spanish interests in 
Morocco is fully recognized by us, and will be duly 
respected." No, we were not committed, — not 
publicly. Well might Mr. Swift MacNeill say, " It 
is a complete absurdity for others to treat us as 
children, or for us to allow ourselves to be so treated 
in matters of such high international importance as 
those involving questions of peace and war." 

After Casablanca, Fez; and after Fez, Agadir. 
Early in July, Germany set about taking a hand in 
the Moroccan business. Publicly, she was as much 
concerned in the economic arrangements of the Pow- 
ers in Morocco as France or Britain. In February, 
1909, she had signed a declaration with France 
maintaining the integrity and independence of Mo- 
rocco. The Panther at Agadir was an indication of 
what the German Government thought of the French 
expedition to Fez. Questions were asked in the 
House of Commons, but the Government immedi- 
ately put out the sign, " Not in the public interest "; 
and leaders of the Opposition, following the tradi- 
tion of continuity, respected the feelings of the For- 
eign Office. The first question was asked on July 



"AGAINST PUBLIC INTEREST" 197 

3rd, and although Captain Faber asked " if it were 
not safe for British men-o'-war to go " to Agadir, 
the Government made no statement until the 27th, 
July, and then the Prime Minister choked discus- 
sion. He said: 

" Too close an analysis at the present moment of causes 
and antecedents might provoke in more than one quarter 
recrimination and retorts, which it is on every ground de- 
sirable to avoid . . . and I would venture, in the general 
interest, to make a strong appeal to the House, not on the 
present occasion to enter into further details or open up 
controversial ground." 

After a protest from Mr. Ramsey Macdonald 
against the flamboyant speech delivered in the city 
by Mr. Lioyd George, the House settled down to 
talk about any other foreign affairs but Morocco 
and the Panther. The next time the question was 
raised was in November. After the publication of 
the secret articles in the Paris papers, Le Temps 
and Le Matin, the British Government decided to 
let the House of Commons see them. Late in No- 
vember Sir Edward Grey made his statement on the 
Moroccan affairs, and the House had an opportunity 
of speaking its mind on secret diplomacy, without 
really appreciating the real gravity of the business. 
The Prime Minister, relieved no doubt that the Gov- 
ernment escaped so lightly, said : 

" The House has heard from my right honourable friend 
the Foreign Secretary, and I believe has heard with uni- 
versal satisfaction, that the world is now in possession of 
the whole of our treaty obligations on this subject. There 
is no secret arrangement of any sort or kind which has not 
been disclosed, and fully disclosed, to the public, and we 



198 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ask, from that point of view, that our conduct should be 
judged by the measure of our treaty obligations which mem- 
bers of the House are able to ascertain precisely for them- 
selves." 

That was good news. And when the Prime Min- 
ister emphasized the fact on December 6th, 191 1, in 
reply to a question put by Mr. Gordon Harvey, 
numbers of members thought the ugly rumour of 
our being under war-obligations to France would be 
utterly dispelled. The Prime Minister said: 

" As has been stated, there were no secret engagements 
with France other than those that have now been published, 
and there are no secret engagements with any foreign Gov- 
ernment that entail upon us any obligation to render military 
or naval assistance to any other Power." ^ 

Later in that month we learned that all treaties 
had not been made public: 

"Mr. Swift MacNeill: 'Do I understand the right 

J 1 In the 'December, 191 1, issue of the Revieiv of Re'vieivs Mr. 

V W. T. Stead had something to say on the Moroccan Crisis: 

" We were nearly involved in the stupendous catastrophe of a 
gigantic war with the greatest of all the World-Powers in order 
to enable France to tear up the Treaty of Algeciras by taking pos- 
session of the Empire of Morocco whose independence and in- 
tegrity we were pledged to defend. It is not to our interest to 
make over to France a vast domain in Northern Africa. . . . The 
fact remains that in order to put France in possession of Morocco 
we all but went to war with Germany. We have escaped war, 
but we have not escaped the natural and abiding enmity of the 
German people. Is it possible to frame a heavier indictment of 
the foreign policy of any British Ministry? The secret, the open 
secret of this almost incredible crime against treaty faith, British 
interests, and the peace of the world, is the unfortunate fact that 
Sir Edward Grey has been dominated by men at the Foreign Office 
who believe all considerations must be subordinated to the one 
supreme duty of thwarting Germany at every turn, even if in so 
doing British interests, treaty faith and the peace of the world are 
trampled underfoot. I speak that of which I know," 



WHY NOT ANARCHISM? 199 

honourable gentleman to say that there are other secret 
treaties besides the secret treaty recently disclosed between 
this country and France? ' 

"Sir Edward Grey: 'Does the hon. gentleman mean 
between this country and France ? ' 

"Mr. MacNeill: 'Between this country and any other 
country. We know about France.' 

"Sir Edward Grey: 'Yes, sir; there are other engage- 
ments that have not been published.' " 

We have recently been throwing a deal of con- 
tempt on the doctrine that Might is Right, but 
wherein does the Kaiser's Government differ from 
ours In foreign policy? Are ethics any nearer poli- 
tics in any modern European state than they were 
in MachlavelH's time? For those who hold the no- 
tion that a Government stands In the ethical posi- 
tion of an individual and In Its operations It should 
always be actuated by the ethics which should gov- 
ern the actions of an individual, let it be observed 
that responsibility cannot be fixed on a Government 
as It can be fixed on the individual; and ethics and 
responsibility cannot be divorced. Is it possible to 
fix responsibility on this Government? Some one 
says it Is responsible to the people. What, in the 
sense that an Individual Is responsible for his ac- 
tions? No, Indeed. In the case of the Individual 
when he lies, or steals, or murders, there is no shift- 
ing responsibility; but In the case of a Government 
where is personal responsibility to be fixed? 

Is it any wonder that the world of thought Is 
shaken every now and then by a Stirner, or a Baku- 
nln, or a Nietzsche? Statesmen must not always 
scoff at the notion that " for the superfluous the state 
was invented." Injustice and poverty, hatred and 



200 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

war, will continue so long as men can shift responsi- 
bility. 

" The ultimate purpose of the State is not to rule men, 
to keep them in fear, to subject them to the will of others, 
but, on the contrary, to allow each as far as possible to live 
in security, that is, to preserve for each his natural right to 
live without harm to himself or to his neighbour. No, I 
repeat, the object of the State is not to transform reasonable 
beings into animals or automata; its object is to enable the 
citizens to develop in security their bodies and their minds, 
freely to employ their reason. The true end of the State 
therefore is liberty." 

Spinoza sounds a bit old-fashioned, but what 
other basis is there for a State? How far Britain 
is removed from the foundation laid down by Spi- 
noza is a question which to try to answer would fill 
any political economist with despair. 



CHAPTER X 

THE POWER TO WAR 

Gone By and utter Nothing are all one; 

Why, then, does this creating still go on? 

Gone by ? What means it ? — What a sorry trade ! 

Making, and making nothing of what's made. 

And then this nothing evermore we see 

Making pretence a something still to be. 

So on it goes, the same dull circle spinning — 

'Twere better with the Eternal Void beginning! 

— Goethe. 

Now to turn aside for a little while from the Foreign 
Office, and the endeavours of members to elicit re- 
liable information concerning diplomacy and the 
traffickings of ambassadors, we will fix our attention 
on the War Office. On July 4th, 19 12, the year of 
the Berlin Conversations, Mr. Amery moved to re- 
duce the army estimates by £100. From the debate 
which followed we must quote at some length, so 
that it may be clearly understood how the policy of 
secrecy works in relation to members " in the know," 
and those who can only rely on the statements of 
Ministers; and consequently, with regard to these 
affairs, do not know until it is too late to protest. 
Mr. Amery said: 

" My object Is to draw the attention of the Committee 
to the gravity of the military situation as a whole, and to 
the urgent necessity of bringing our military preparations 

201 



202 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

into some sort of correspondence with our general national 
policy. The point I wish to insist upon to the Committee 
is that we should face the logical consequences of the policy 
to which this country already stands committed with the 
general approval of the great majority on both sides of the 
House, and that we should shape our military preparations 
by the same standard by which our naval preparations are 
invariably determined — the standard, I mean, of the force 
we may have to encounter in war. It is common ground 
to us all in this House that we must at any cost and at all 
hazards maintain the supremacy of the British navy against 
the growing menace of German rivalry at sea. It is also 
common ground, at any rate among the great majority of 
us, that the domination of Europe by a great military power 
which is also our greatest rival at sea would in the long run 
make the retention of our naval supremacy impossible, and 
consequently the maintenance of France as an independent 
great Power in Europe is, in the present situation, not only 
an honourable obligation, but a vital interest to the safety 
of this country. It is also common ground that in certain 
eventualities, eventualities which seemed by no means remote 
less than a year ago, we should be prepared to send a mili- 
tary force to France to assist her. What ought also to be 
common ground, and no less common ground than those 
matters I have already mentioned, is that the force thus sent 
should be adequate to achieve its purpose. If we send a 
force at all, and it is agreed that we should send it — [Hon. 
Members: " No! "] It is by the great majority on both 
sides of this House, and if we send a force at all we should 
send it to make sure of victory and not to share a defeat." 

The members who cried " No " perhaps remem- 
bered the replies to Mr. Jowett's questions in 
March, 191 1, when he asked if we were under obli- 
gations to send troops to the assistance of France. 
They were relying no doubt on the negative reply 
returned by the Minister, and not then thinking of a 



A CLEAR PROPHECY 203 

secret system which precluded the possibility of a 
truthful answer to such questions. Be that as it 
may, Mr. Amery had no compunction in speaking 
his mind forcibly on the matter. Further, he be- 
came prophetic: 

" Why should we not have from the Secretary of State 
for War an equally clear, explicit statement of the relative 
forces which would take the field in France and Belgium 
at the outbreak of that same conflict, and an equally clear 
recognition from him of the duty of the War Office to pro- 
vide a force which would make it unlikely that a German 
attack upon France would succeed, and therefore in the 
highest degree improbable that the attack would ever be 
attempted? . . . The question I should like the right hon- 
ourable gentleman to answer is whether or not we have a 
militarj^ force strong enough to render France secure in the 
event of an attack. Has any right hon. gentleman, ad- 
dressing this House, ever put that question before us? 
Do we even pretend to face it? Let me remind the Com- 
mittee that since the crisis of last year Germany has added 
very considerably to her navy. Immediately, and with the 
assent of every one, we responded by a substantial increase 
of our navy. May I also remind the Committee that since 
that same crisis Germany has added 80,000 men to her army 
for the express purpose of strengthening the force that is to 
march through Belgium to crush the French left. It is upon 
our Expeditionary Force that the brunt of that march would 
fall. Has any responsible Minister come down to this 
House and asked even a single battalion to be added to 
the strength of our army? " 

This was all deeply interesting matter, for Mr. 
Amery was not remotely connected with the London 
Times, and as members knew from many bouts at 
question-time, earlier In the year, the military cor- 
respondent of the Times was the editor of the Army 



204 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Review, with a room at the War Office. At any 
rate, Mr. Amery knew so much thqt some members, 
who knew no more than Ministers cared to tell 
them, scoffed defiantly at Mr. Amery's knowledge. 
One more quotation from his extraordinary speech: 

" Otir opponents will have the choice of two objectives. 
They can attempt either to interfere with the despatch of 
the Expeditionary Force or to cover an invasion, a counter- 
stroke intended either to bring us to our knees or, at any 
rate, to prevent a considerable part of the Expeditionary 
Force from going, and so to clear the field for the German 
advance through Flanders." 

Now if the information Mr. Amery gave to the 
House was authentic, what becomes of all the indig- 
nation of Ministers at Germany's violation of the 
neutrality and independence of Belgium? General 
Staffs were hard at work, and it might safely be im- 
puted that they did not leave the Belgian military 
authorities ignorant of their plans. After Mr. 
Amery the House heard Sir Reginald Pole-Carew: 

" I want to say a word about the Expeditionary Force. 
We have been told by the hon. member who has just 
spoken that the preparations of the Government are grossly 
inadequate, and I entirely agree with him. I do not think 
that those preparations exist. I did not ask to see that blue 
envelope because I did not wish to have my tongue tied by 
anything that it might have contained. Also I want to 
know why it should be ' secret ' ; who is it who is to be 
kept in ignorance? Is it that the people of this country are 
to be kept in the dark and hoodwinked and not to be allowed 
to know what the preparations are which are necessary for 
their safety? Is it that reason? Is it that our enemies are 
not to know? I venture to think that the most probable 
enemy we have at the present moment can give the right 



A PARTY IN IGNORANCE 205 

hon. gentleman points in information. Is it those we 
hope to be our allies? I think that is the most dangerous 
question of the whole lot. If you choose to hoodwink your 
friends — and I am sorry to say the present Government 
have done so with great success — if you think you are de- 
ceiving your enemies, neither is so bad as to attempt to 
deceive those whom you hope will be your allies abroad and 
to whom you are making promises which I do not think you 
can carry out. I say that is a most dangerous proceeding." 

The statements of Mr. Amery and Lt.-Gen. Sir 
Reginald Pole-Carew were not refuted by the Min- 
ister for War; indeed the War Office authorities in 
the House did not refer at all to the matter of our 
being pledged to send the Expeditionary Force to 
the assistance of France in a war with Germany. 
Small wonder Germany wished to know if she might 
have a free hand. The Opposition at no time since 
the autumn of 19 10 seemed to be in doubt about 
our engagement with the French. Only the rank 
and file of the Liberal party remained ignorant of 
the full measure of our diplomatic liabilities, and 
though many back-bench Liberals severely criticised 
the foreign policy of the Government, the Ministry 
left them to endure the sneers and jeers of the Oppo- 
sition " in the know." It would be hard to find in 
the pages of any book by a German militarist a 
specimen of grosser contempt for pacifists than that 
displayed by the Government in those days. Well, 
there is a kind of loyalty that deserves to be treated 
with contempt! There was, however, no doubt in 
French official and press circles as to our engage- 
ment. Mr. Buxton, in the Foreign Office debate of 
July, 191 2, quoted from the NouveUe Revue, one 
of the most prominent Paris reviews, a statement 



2o6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

lurid enough to satisfy the supporters of M. Del- 
casse : 

/ " We intend to have war. After forty years of a heavily 
farmed peace, we can at last utter this opinion, without the 
serious readers of a French review shaking in their shoes. 
. . . France is ready to strike and to conquer as she was 
not ready forty years ago, and she will not be in four or 
five years to come, owing to the annual divergent numbers 
of the birth rate in each country. . . . We, the attacking 
party, will have arranged with England that their fleet . . . 
' will have followed . . . the remains of the whole German 
navy into German waters." 

Later in July another attack was made on the 
supplementary naval estimates by Mr. Middlemore, 
one of the most persistent of the Opposition in ques- 
tioning the Admiralty as to our preparedness. He 
said: 

" Then we had some criticisms from the Prime Minister. 
He said the Vote was not to threaten the Triple Alliance. 
He left Italy entirely out. The Triple Alliance is an as- 
sociation of three Powers to fight under certain circum- 
stances, and I cannot conceive how this can be judiciously, 
fairly, patriotically, and wisely left out, and if one leaves 
it out, as far as one's self is concerned, we must remember 
that we have an entente, and that if the three Powers attack 
France we shall have to defend France, or else the entente 
is a sham which ought never to have been made. It is per- 
fidious Albion again." 

Though the question of secret treaties was brought 
up several times during the long autumn and winter 
session no information was given by Ministers as to 
whether we were involved with France or not. The 
correspondence between the Foreign Secretary and 
the French ambassador passed in November, but 



A SECOND LIE 207 

nothing about it was communicated to the House. 
At the beginning of the next session, Lord Hugh 
Cecil raised the question of secret engagements in 
the debate on the Address. The passages are of 
such extraordinary interest they are worth quoting 
in full from the official report: 

"Lord Hugh Cecil: 'The right hon. gentleman made 
reference to foreign affairs, and there is one aspect of 
them, of not so controversial a character as others, on 
which I should like to say a few words. The right hon. 
gentleman and his colleagues are generally believed — I 
speak with the utmost diffidence in regard to allegations 
which may not be well founded — to have entered into an 
engagement, or, to speak more accurately, to have given 
assurances, which in the contingency of a great European 
war would involve heavy military obligations on this coun- 
try. We do not suspect the Prime Minister or the Foreign 
Secretary of pursuing anything but a pacific foreign policy, 
and we are far from saying that their policy is in any way 
an aggressive one; but certainly we believe, if the stories 
current are true, the policy, if it is not to be regarded as an 
aggressive one, is adventurous.' 

"The Prime Minister: 'Will the noble lord define a 
little more definitely what he means? ' 

"Lord Hugh Cecil: 'I am only anxious not to use 
words which will convey anything but perfectly fair criti- 
cism in a matter of this sort, and any ambiguity in what 
I have said is due to the fact that I do not wish to go be- 
yond the necessities of the case.' 

"The Prime Minister: *I do not complain.' 

" Lord Hugh Cecil : ' There is a very general belief 
that this country is under an obligation, not a treaty obli- 
gation, but an obligation arising out of an assurance given 
by the Ministry in the course of diplomatic negotiations, to 
send a very large armed force out of this country to operate 
in Europe. That is the general belief. It would be very 



208 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

presumptuous of any one who has not accessi to all the facts 
in possession of the Government — ' 

"The Prime Minister: 'I ought to say that it is not 
true.' 

" Lord Hugh Cecil : * I am very glad to have elicited 
that explanation. It is certainly w^idely believed that the 
Government have engaged in a military policy of an ad- 
venturous kind, and I certainly think, if that is right, that 
it would involve very important considerations when you 
come to consider what are the military resources of this 
country. We shall have a debate on that point. It is im- 
possible, as the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was 
fond of emphasizing, to judge of the military policy of this 
or any other country, unless you enter into the understand- 
ings or obligations involved by its foreign policy. It is 
quite impossible for this House fully to criticise the military 
policy of the Government unless they know, at any rate, 
what it is the Government expect the army to do. It cer- 
tainly would follow that if you were prepared, as no recent 
Government has attempted to be prepared, to take an im- 
portant military part in the early stages of a great European 
war upon the Continent, the military preparations of other 
Governments, and of this Government in the earlier years 
of its tenure of office, were not sufficient. Let me add that 
I am not indicating or hinting that we ought to have com- 
pulsory military service. There is no one who dislikes 
compulsory military service in any shape or form more than 
I do, and I should never be convinced in its favour by any 
argument excepting that which showed it to be urgently 
necessary for the protection of the country. It is a matter 
for very grave consideration, if we are getting into a posi- 
tion in which obligations become binding upon us, whether 
the voluntary system will ultimately bear the strain. I do 
not believe any Government will adopt a compulsory mili- 
tary service unless the case is strong enough to be brought 
about by general consent. But what we have to be afraid 
of is that we will get into such a position that the military 



DID NOT THE PREMIER KNOW? 209 

obligations of this country may become so heavy that the 
voluntary system may break down. I hope that the For- 
eign Secretary and the Secretary of State for War may be 
able to co-ordinate the foreign policy and the military pol- 
icy in order to show how the military policy and the foreign 
policy fit together — how far the military resources of the 
country are really sufficient to carry out the obligations 
thrown upon those resources by the foreign policy of the 
Government. I think that is a matter of very great im- 
portance.' " 

Now, v^^hy did the Prime Minister say, " I ought 
to say that it is not true "? Was he shielding the 
Foreign Secretary, or was he a victim of the despi- 
cable system of secrecy that necessitates so much 
lying in connection with foreign affairs? Was the 
Prime Minister not informed as to the exchange of 
letters between Sir Edward Grey and M. Cambon, 
only a little more than three months before the de- 
bate? That is probable, but it must be remembered 
that the Foreign Secretary in his speech on August 
3rd, told the House that the letters were exchanged 
after the Cabinet had seriously considered the mat- 
ter. It is so hard to believe the Prime Minister 
wilfully misled the House. 

When the House reached the army estimates, ten 
days after the debate referred to above, Major- 
General Sir Ivor Herbert dealt with the agitation 
of the conscriptionists in the country, and said : 

" When I was interrupted just now I was about to quote 
the words of Lord Roberts with regard to the use of this 
great force. He said : ' It is to carry out our bounden 
duty to the Continental alliance for the maintenance of the 
balance of power in Europe.' It never was contemplated 
by the present Government and I am certain it never will 



2IO HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

be contemplated by them, that we should maintain half a 
million of men here for use in an expedition on the Conti- 
nent for the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. 
. . . We have no such bounden duty to a Continental 
Alliance. The Prime Minister the other day interjected 
an absolute denial when he was questioned by the noble 
lord, the Member for Oxford, as to whether we had any 
such bounden duty. He said that there was nothing of the 
sort. It would be the duty of any Government before 
entering into such responsibility as that to make it known 
in this House." 

On March 24th, the question of treaty obligations 
was raised again; two members asked the Prime 
Minister if the country was under any, and, if so, 
what, obligation to France to send an armed force 
in certain contingencies to operate in Europe. To 
the questions the Prime Minister replied: 

" As has been repeatedly stated, this country is not under 
any obligation not public and known to Parliament which 
compels it to take part in any war." 

There was nothing in the questions about the coun- 
try being compelled to take part in any war, but the 
reply was accepted as a complete answer to the ques- 
tions. He also said, " If war arises between Euro- 
pean Powers there are no unpublished agreements 
which will restrict or hamper the freedom of the 
Government or of Parliament to decide whether or 
not Great Britain should participate In a war." 

Though the denials of the Prime Minister lulled 
the fears of his supporters, those " in the know " 
were not so easily gulled. 

Towards the end of March, 19 13, Mr. Churchill 
Introduced the navy estimates, and adverted to the 



THE POWER OF A LIE 211 

suggestion of a " naval holiday." The estimates 
amounted to £46,309,300, but the gross expenditure 
before the year ended rose to £49,625,636. Within 
a week or two of the- First Lord's announcement, the 
Jingo press of this country poured out a stream of 
wicked lies to the effect that Germany's answer to 
Mr. Churchill's offer of a " naval hoHday " was a 
greatly swollen programme. The terror-strikers 
and the blood-spilling brigade worked hard to raise 
another panic. In the House the every-man-a-sailor 
party cried for more ships, more money, and more 
men. The position in the Mediterranean was very 
freely discussed. Mr. Lee said: 

" There is the vital question of the Mediterranean, and 
here I would again remind the Committee of the very pre- 
cise, dramatic and important statement made by the Secre- 
tary of the Colonies last autumn, which was endorsed by 
the Prime Minister, in which he said: 'We shall maintain 
our position there, both on land and sea, to as full an extent 
as we have ever done in the past, and in doing so we shall 
depend upon no alliance or understanding, actual or im- 
plied, but upon our own forces.' The First Lord in his 
Navy Memorandum showed that, in 191 5, Austria and Italy 
combined would have ten ' dreadnaughts,' and that our 
squadron of four battle cruisers and four armoured cruisers 
would not suffice to fill our requirements, and that this 
matter must be reconsidered. We shall have, by that time, 
no ships to spare in home waters for this purpose. It is, 
therefore, clear that if this policy is carried out we must 
practically build a new squadron for service in the Medi- 
terranean, and, what is more, we must begin it immediately." 

Lord Charles Beresford suggested that Mr. 
Churchill must " be trusting to France to guard the 
Mediterranean." It was, however, Sir C. Kinloch- 



212 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Cooke who brought out clearly the peculiarity of our 
understanding with France. He said: 

** The First Lord bids us take comfort in the fact — these 
are his own words — that, 

" ' in conjunction with the Navy of France, our Medi- 
terranean Fleet would make a combined force superior to 
all possible combination.' 

** A remarkable statement, look at it how you will, and 
one I think the Committee will agree somewhat difficult to 
reconcile with the recent pronouncement of the Prime Min- 
ister as to our understanding with France in the matter 
of armaments. In one case we have the Prime Minister 
repudiating an obligation on our side of any kind, and in 
the other we have the First Lord of the Admiralty relying 
for the safety of our Eastern Empire, our trade and our 
food supply, upon the assistance which he presumes will be 
ready at any moment to be given to us by France." 

Remarkable, indeed ! but not so strange when the 
whole course of the tortuous business is traced from 
the time Sir Edward Grey consented to the conver- 
sations in 1906. It would have been remarkable 
if contradiction and evasion had not followed as a 
consequence of the Foreign Secretary's secret diplo- 
macy. Prevarication seems to have become the first 
law of secret diplomacy since the Algeciras Act was 
signed. Still, truth will out, though not always from 
the mouths of babes and sucklings. In August, 
1 9 13, Lord Haldane, in the House of Lords, placed 
the Prime Minister in an invidious position, when 
he said: 

" I do not think it would be reasonable or wise for any 
Government to keep a fleet in the Mediterranean equal to 
the fleets of Austria and Italy combined, because the burden 
would be simply enormous, and there is no justification for 



MR. CHURCHILL'S SUGGESTION 213 

it. . . . France has in the Mediterranean a fleet almost as 
great as the fleet of Austria and Italy combined, and if you 
take into account that we are on the most friendly relations 
with France, and that- our fleet in the Mediterranean is a 
substantial one, then, looking at the balance, you have a 
situation which cannot be described as unsatisfactory." 

Thus to the First Lord's name must be added the 
name of the then Lord Chancellor of England as be- 
ing at variance with the Prime Minister and the For- 
eign Secretary as to our obligation to France. But 
when the Prime Minister In 191 1 said that the 
rumours of war in the summer of that year were 
" extravagant fictions " and nothing but " pure in- 
vention," humble members of the House should not 
be surprised when Ministers make contradictory 
statements In connection with diplomacy. 

It may be well to take one last look at the " na- 
val holiday" suggestion. In October, 1913, Mr. 
Churchill went to Manchester, and there he had an- 
other fling at his pet scheme for reducing armaments. 
In the spring, when the estimates were Introduced, 
the Jingoes spread reports of a vast Increase In the 
German estimates. Mr. Churchill recognized that 
it would not be possible for either Germany or our- 
selves, even If the two nations were agreed, to stand 
still for a whole year unless other Powers could be 
persuaded to do likewise, but he anticipated that if 
Great Britain and Germany took the lead In ap- 
proaching other European Powers, their great In- 
fluence would Insure good prospects of success. 
Nevertheless he said: 

" Now we say, while there is plenty of time, in all friend- 
ship and sincerity to our great neighbour Germany: 'If 
you will put off beginning your two ships for twelve months 



214 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

from the ordinary date when you would have begun them, 
we will put off beginning our four ships, in absolute good 
faith, for exactly the same period.' " 

That seemed to the layman a fairly reasonable 
proposal. But was it feasible? If we glance at the 
figures of the Triple Entente and the Triple Al- 
liance we shall see that Great Britain was in a posi- 
tion to say to Germany, " After the scandalous way 
you have been treated by Entente diplomacy, the 
Government is determined to show that its fine words 
on good relations and peaceful intentions mean some- 
thing substantial; therefore it will bring pressure to 
bear on the partners of the Triple Entente to desist 
from building ships in the year 19 14." With the 
French fleet in the Mediterranean, and the northern 
and western coasts of France undefended, the propo- 
sition would not have been so Quixotic as it appears. 
Anyway, at the time it was worth any sacrifice to 
convince Germany that our policy was not one of 
isolating her in Europe. The figures for gross ex- 
penditure and for new construction were well above 
a two Power standard' in favour of the Triple En- 
tente : 

GROSS EXPENDITURE, 1913 

Great Britain . . . £49,625,636 Germany £23,030,633 

France 21,292,422 Austria 7.332,703 

Russia 25,392,784 Italy I3>333.762 

Triple Entente .. £96,310,842 Triple Alliance . £43,697,098 

NEW CONSTRUCTION, 1913 

Great Britain ... £16,883,875 Germany £11,010,883 

France 8,893,064 Austria 3,288,937 

Russia 12,082,516 Italy 3»933.ooo 

Triple Entente . . £37,859,455 Triple Alliance . £18,232,820 



FRUITS OF FALSEHOOD 215 

It is a pity Mr. Churchill was not in a position 
to tell the people of England that he had arranged 
with France to leave the Mediterranean to her fleet 
while England's looked after the Channel and the 
North Sea. If he could have broken down the bar- 
riers of the criminal policy of secrecy, and have been 
perfectly frank about the naval position, he might 
have carried the vast majority of the people with 
him. He might have said that the panicky reports 
of the spring with regard to the swollen estimates 
of the German Government were not true, and that 
it would be worth while removing all suspicion from 
the minds of German statesmen; but that this could 
be done only by a bold declaration that we shall not 
build any ships this year, — or next, if it could not be 
arranged for this year. Hidebound tradition, how- 
ever, held him fast in its grip ; and his proposal only 
served to blind those of his fellow-countrymen who 
prefer to do anything but study these affairs for 
themselves. As it was, the suggestion made no 
headway in England and the Germans took it for a 
sorry joke. 

In the spring of 19 14, the debates which were 
raised on the defence of the Empire and the strategic 
position of the forces in the Mediterranean, revealed 
the profound dissatisfaction of well-informed mem- 
bers as to the value of the Entente, and the policy 
of the " Commander of the Forces " as to foreign 
affairs generally. The navy estimates reached the 
colossal figure of £52,261,703, and many men began 
to wonder whether ententes were not after all fear- 
fully expensive luxuries ; particularly when the arma-« 
ment burden was so unfairly apportioned. When 
one partner in an entente, with little risk of a land 



2i6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

war, has to spend twice as much on her navy as either 
of her two partners, it is time to ask what return 
will she ever get for the crushing burden thrown upon 
her workers? But secret understandings and en- 
tanghng aUiances must be paid for, no matter who 
objects, and no matter how much lying such a policy 
may entail. When the Foreign Office hands over 
the fate of a nation to military and naval experts, 
and the people permit a system which gives the For- 
eign Secretary the power of a " Commander of the 
Forces," and lets him conduct his business without 
Parliamentary control, — then the nation must not 
complain when it is asked to settle the bill of costs. 
But it should be remembered that new generations 
will have to bear their share of the burden. The 
people of the next generation will look at the history 
of this terrible war with calm deliberation. They 
will not be blinded by the passions let loose by our 
foreign policy during the past eight years, which 
make it almost impossible for men of to-day, fighting 
for their national existence, to see the long sequence 
of error, mendacity, and stupidity which has brought 
this awful crime to fruition. But reason will re- 
turn; other views will replace those which are domi- 
nant to-day; and history will repeat itself in this case 
as surely as it has done in the case of every other 
war. Then, in the process of reconsideration, the 
verdict will be given against all those forces which 
have brought the nations of Europe to the slaughter 
and devastation of an Armageddon. A rider will 
accompany that verdict, blaming secret diplomacy, 
the Jingo press, the armament ring, and the polyglot 
gangs of concessionaires, for embroiling this nation 
in the strife. 



MORE LIES 217 

Some more questions about our obligations to en- 
gage in military operations on the Continent must be 
recorded here. The Foreign Secretary replied to 
both of them. The' first one was put on April 28th, 
1914: 

" Mr. King asked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
whether he is aware that demands have been recently put 
forward for a further military understanding between the 
Powers of the Triple Entente with a view to concerted 
action on the Continent in case of certain eventualities; and 
whether the policy of this country still remains one of free- 
dom from all obligations to engage in military operations on 
the Continent? 

"The Secretary (Sir Edward Grey): 'The answer to 
the first part of the question is in the negative, and as 
regards the latter part the position now remains the same 
as stated by the Prime Minister in answer to a question in 
this House on the 24th, March, 1913.'" 

The Prime Minister had said the country was un- 
der no obligation; there were no agreements which 
would restrict or hamper the freedom of the Gov- 
ernment or of Parliament. 

Then two questions were put on June nth, 19 14: 

" Mr. King asked whether any naval agreement has been 
recently entered into between Russia and Great Britain; and 
whether any negotiations, with a view to enable agreement, 
have recently taken place or are now pending between Russia 
and Great Britain? 

" Sir William Byles asked the Secretary of State for For- 
eign Affairs whether he can make any statement with regard 
to an alleged new naval agreement between Great Britain 
and Russia; how far such agreement would affect our rela- 
tions with Germany; and will he lay papers? 

"Sir Edward Grey: 'The hon. member for North 



2i8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Somerset asked a similar question last year with regard 
to the military forces, and the hon. member for North 
Salford asked a similar question also on the same day, 
as he has done again to-day. The Prime Minister then 
replied that, if war arose between European Powers, there 
were no unpublished agreements which would restrict or 
hamper the freedom of the Government or of Parliament 
to decide whether or not Great Britain should participate 
in a war. That answer covers both the questions on the 
paper. It remains as true to-day as it was a year ago. No 
negotiations have since been concluded with any Power that 
would make the statement less true. No such negotiations 
are in progress, and none are likely to be entered upon so 
far as I can judge. But if any agreement were to be con- 
cluded that made it necessary to withdraw or modify the 
Prime Minister's statement of last year, which I have 
quoted, it ought, in my opinion, to be, and I suppose that 
it would be, laid before Parliament.' " 

Less than two months before the outbreak of hos- 
tilities, this was the way the British House of Com- 
mons was treated by Ministers of a Government 
which began its career in 1906, under the old Liberal 
flag that bore the motto, " Peace, Retrenchment, 
and Reform " ! Well might the socialists cry at 
meetings when Liberals have asked for the demo- 
cratic forces to pull together, " Liberals, forsooth I 
your Government has never been Liberal since the 
Liberal Leaguers got control of the Cabinet!" 
Only those who have borne the brunt of the political 
fighting in the country know how hard the task has 
been to keep the old Radicals in the fighting line 
while this Government has been enmeshed in the en- 
tanglements of a Continental system through its mad 
imperial desires and its secret foreign policy. 
Twitted by the Conservatives for " a meek sub- 



A VEHEMENT PROTEST 219 

serviency " in the division lobby, and a "grotesque 
impotency " under an autocratic Ministry; and, on 
the other hand, charged by the sociaHsts as support- 
ers of gangs of British and foreign capitalists syn- 
dicated for the business of exploiting the natives of 
Africa and Asia (besides acquiescing in the nefari- 
ous designs of the armament ring to rob the wealth- 
producers of the country) members who sacrificed 
some of their principles in order to get land reform, 
constitutional reform, and franchise reform, found 
in the end that such benefits as they had gained were 
mere dross as considered against the crime of par- 
ticipating in a European war. 

So late as June 29th, 19 14, the true position of 
the House in relation to foreign affairs was de- 
scribed by Mr. Swift MacNelll, in the debate on the 
Foreign Office Vote. He said: 

" If we are not to know the reality of things it would 
be better if we had no debates in this House on foreign pol- 
icy. Member after member gets up and says what to the 
best of his information are the true facts of the case, but 
none of these hon. members are furnished with official 
information as they would be furnished with on any matter 
of domestic policy. I think it is an amazing thing to see 
how the House is crowded on matters of naval defence, and 
to see how this House of Commons allows itself to be treated 
as a child in matters which are the springs of policy them- 
selves — in matters which create wars, and for which these 
naval defences are themselves required. It would be im- 
mensely better if there were fewer millions spent on the 
Navy, and there was an open public policy as to our rela- 
tions with other Powers. ... I say that the Houses of 
Parliament so far as foreign policy is concerned are abso- 
lutely impotent. . . . This House of Commons has no 
power to declare war or to make peace. These preroga- 



\ 



220 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tives of the Crown are practically invested in the Ministers, 
and exercised by them. In foreign affairs they are not 
I responsible. The Ministry of England can declare war 
I to-day without consulting the House of Commons. Per- 
haps it will be said that is all right, and that the House of 
Commons has the power of stopping supplies. Yes, but no 
House of Commons with ordinary patriotic feeling would 
dream of stopping supplies when that means the mainte- 
nance and protection of soldiers abroad, whatever may be 
the facts of the war. Therefore, the Cabinet has power to 
make peace and to declare war; to make this country enter 
into the very highest and most momentous international 
transactions, and has a power which it has not in connection 
with the narrowest turnpike Bill. Can any one imagine a 
Committee of Parliament, such as the Cabinet is, should be 
able to put the country under the most intense national 
obligation, and to bind the lives and destinies and properties 
of the subject? " 

Outside of Germany the bureaucracy of Berlin has 
had no more implacable opponents than the Radicals 
of Britain. For nearly twenty years it has been 
pointed out in speeches and pamphlets as the great 
Continental stumbling block in the road to a fuller 
and deeper understanding among the workers of the 
great Powers. The whole system of Government 
at Berlin has been utterly disliked by the progres- 
sive people of this country, because it practically lies 
in the hands of a special set of men dominated by 
the Kaiser. Under his will the bureaucracy shaped 
the course of peace and war and social affairs, while 
little or no political power rested in the hands of the 
vast majority of the German people. Absolute in 
all things that concern the destiny of a people, the 
Kaiser stood for all those economic and political 
abominations the British people had fought in their 



TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM 221 

land for hundreds of years to overthrow ; grievances 
they had been to some extent successful In removing. 
Have they then fought in vain? What is the posi- 
tion in this year of 1915 ? A Cabinet with absolute 
power to plunge the nation within a week into a 
European war, to carry out obligations the House of 
Commons were told less than eight weelcs before 
hostilities commenced did riot exist; but which the 
Government confessed, when it was too late, were 
entered into more than eight years ago. The end 
of our constitutional struggle, then, is to set up an 
absolute Cabinet in place of an absolute monarch 
and an all-powerful House of Lords. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE WORK OF DIPLOMATISTS 

" There is another great gulf which separates the differ- 
ences between Austria and Russia, howsoever they may be 
decided, from the affairs of the Western Powers. Britain 
and Germany, Italy and France are at peace. They desire 
peace; they need peace; there is no ground of quarrel be- 
tween them — absolutely none. They have only to con- 
tinue to pursue together the simple and sincere policy they 
have been following, they have only to trust one another 
in this time of trouble, they have only to take hold of one 
another's hands in confidence and good-will, and there is 
no power under the sky that can drive them from the paths 
of sanity and honour. No one can measure the conse- 
quences of a general war. The original cause would soon 
be lost in the greater and more terrible issues which would 
be raised. . . . The only epitaph which history could write 
on such a catastrophe would be that this whole generation 
of men went mad and tore themselves to pieces." 

— Winston Churchill, November, 1912. 

That epitaph will serve for the stone that will be 
raised by our heirs on the grave of our madness. 
Never was peace needed by the peoples of Europe 
so urgently as in June, 19 14. But men went mad 
in July; statesmen led the way, pushed by diploma- 
tists, and kings followed; not along the paths of san- 
ity and honour, but into those terrible labyrinths 
where reason is abandoned by all who enter in. In 
19 14 the economic and political condition of Britain 

222 



A CLEAR SKY 223 

and Ireland was serious enough to employ fully all 
the wisdom of our statesmen. Declining trade; 
grave labour trouble approaching; the revolt In the 
army; Ulster's preparation for civil war; sedition 
in the Privy Council and in India; riots in South 
Africa and Dublin; were only some of the outstand- 
ing features of our own disorders. 

When Parliament met on February loth, 19 14, 
the King's speech contained two striking points on 
foreign affairs: 

" My relations with Foreign Powers continue to be 
friendly. I am happy to say that my negotiations, both 
with the German Government and the Ottoman Govern- 
ment as regards matters of importance to the commercial 
and industrial interests of this country in Mesopotamia, are 
rapidly approaching a satisfactory issue, while questions 
which have long been pending with the Turkish Empire in 
respect to regions bordering on the Persian Gulf are in a 
fair way towards an amicable settlement." 

There seemed to be no international friction In 
Europe; the chancelleries gave no indication of the 
coming storm. Even the Balkans seemed to be at 
rest. At home all was strife. The Government, 
entering on Its fourth year of office under the Par- 
liament Act, had to deal for the third and last time 
with the Home Rule Bill. Many other highly con- 
tentious measures, In various stages of legislative de- 
velopment, were to be dealt with. The church, the 
land, and the ascendency parties were Intensely 
alarmed; and urgent was their work In the country 
to forestall at any cost the power of the Parliament 
Act to pass measures against the opposition of the 
House of Lords. The Unionists had succeeded on 
two occasions In turning the House of Commons 



224 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

into a disorderly place ; and threats were made again 
and again to use similar methods in the new session. 
The old ways of reason and argument were fast 
giving place to riot and clamour. No one could 
look forward to the passing of the Home Rule Bill 
with certainty that the House would conduct itself 
decorously. Another pot-house brawl was the least 
that could be expected. For the time being, foreign 
affairs and armaments were forgotten. In the re- 
cess some Ministers had, however, referred to these 
questions in their speeches. Lord Haldane at Hox- 
ton on January 15th, 19 14, said: 

" During the eight years in which the Government had 
been in office the peace of Europe had been preserved. The 
Great Powers had grouped themselves; the piling up of 
armaments had gone on; we had increased our armaments; 
and Europe was an armed camp, but an armed camp in 
which peace not only prevailed, but in which the indications 
were that there was a far greater prospect of peace than 
ever there was before. No one wanted war. If arma- 
ments were piled up it was not for aggression but for fear. 
That would go in time, and would certainly go if the 
beneficent tendency of the last few years was kept up, and 
if this country preserved its policy while remaining in one 
of the groups, yet seeking to bring about good relations be- 
tween that group and the other group. It was with pleas- 
ure that he thought of the great power for good of the two 
statesmen in Europe, Dr. Bethmann-Hollweg and Sir Ed- 
ward Grey. These two had worked for all they were 
worth, and we had seen the fruits of it during a period of 
great anxiety and crisis, when probably without that group 
system we might have had a conflagration in Europe. 
These groups had a new value and meaning. They did not 
exist to break the peace, but to keep the peace." 

This only about six months before Europe was 



A SAD RETROSPECT 225 

engulfed In the horror of the centuries ! There was 
then no doubt in Lord Haldane's mind as to the way 
the two heads (Sir Edward Grey and Dr. von Beth- 
mann-Hollweg) of t;he armed groups, the Entente 
and the AUiance, had worked for the peace of Eu- 
rope. No one wanted war! The groups did not 
exist to break the peace but to keep the peace ! It 
is like a grotesque nightmare now to read such a 
speech, delivered only a few short months before 
the greatest nations of Europe plunged into war. 
To read that speech, now that nine nations are at 
war, and try to get one gleam of hope for democracy 
out of all the gloom of battlefields is a task of utter 
despair. Every sophism, every platitude, every 
pretext of statesman, diplomatist, soldier and sailor 
for armaments, groups, and treaties has been 
smashed to atoms. Truth, like a battered drab, in 
burning shame hides her head in the shadows of an 
empty brothel. Either Lord Haldane knew then 
he was not speaking the truth or numbers of British 
journalists who have written on diplomacy since the 
war began are brazen liars. Both cannot be right; 
but as Lord Haldane, with all his political faults, is 
one of the great intellectual forces in Britain, and 
would be apt to know what he was talking about, 
the jingoists of the gutter-press may be left to enjoy 
what they earn. Lord Haldane was a bad prophet; 
and though he told us so recently as July, 19 15, that 
he " was bound to make friendly speeches," he might 
have had the courage to tell the country earlier all 
he learned in Berlin in 19 12. Here Is the curse of 
the whole despicable business of diplomacy: a man 
like Lord Haldane must make friendly speeches 
(which in this case meant hiding the truth) when 



226 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

he had not the " smallest doubt about the imperative 
necessity of our taking part in the war," — as he told 
us in July, 1915. 

It is almost a futile task to attempt to reconcile 
the utterances of our statesmen made before July, 
19 14, with those delivered since the war began. To 
those who would urge the excuse that members of 
a Cabinet cannot speak straightforwardly on deli- 
cate questions of foreign affairs for fear of precipi- 
tating an international crisis, it might be asked what 
particular benefit have the people derived from the 
policy of secrecy and hyperbole? If the conduct 
of foreign affairs precludes the possibility of the 
truth being given to the people, is it necessary to mis- 
lead them by making friendly speeches? Would it 
not be better to preserve an ironclad silence? Why 
tell the people anything about foreign affairs and 
armaments? Perhaps the policy of the future will 
be: get the money and say nothing. A rhetorical 
loss might at any rate mean a dialectical gain. 

Take another instance of where statesmen's ut- 
terances before the war come in conflict with the 
screeds of jingoists. Sir Edward Grey spoke at 
Manchester in February, 19 14, on International Af- 
fairs and Armaments. He said: 

" While British naval expenditure is a great factor in the 
naval expenditure of Europe, the forces which are making 
that expenditure increase generally are really beyond our 
control. I admit that we had some responsibility originally 
in building the first dreadnought. No doubt we are open 
to the criticism that we set the example. ... At the pres- 
ent moment what is causing the increase of dreadnoughts 
in Europe? It is going on without reference to British 
expenditure. The ships which Germany is going to lay 



CONTRADICTIONS 227 

down in this coming year are being laid down to carry out 
a naval programme, a naval law (which cannot be altered 
without the consent of the Reichstag), which was laid down 
many years ago and a naval law which would not be altered 
this year by anything we could do. When you come to 
the shipbuilding of France, Austria, and Italy, and ask 
yourself why they are building dreadnoughts, I do not think 
you can say in the case of any one of them that they are 
building dreadnoughts because of British shipbuilding. 
Whatever motives they have, it is not competition with us 
in particular which is causing them to build dreadnoughts, 
and if we were to decide to build nothing this year or next 
year, I do not believe it would cause any alteration in the 
shipbuilding of the other great Powers of Europe as a direct 
consequence." 

In the first place this statement proves conclu- 
sively how preposterous was the notion of Mr. 
Churchill's naval holiday, and how absurd is the 
grudge of the Jingo press against Germany for not 
adopting the suggestion of Mr. Churchill. In the 
second place Sir Edward Grey laid the spectre of 
Germany's violation of her naval pledges to us, and 
the surreptitious acceleration of her naval pro- 
gramme. In the third place it proves positively that 
Germany was not building against us, and that we 
were blameful in forcing the armament pace. 

One has only to go to Hansard or the public 
prints to find speeches of Ministers which contradict 
ninety-nine per cent, of the stuff published against 
Germany as to her foreign affairs, naval and military 
development, literature, music and science. But 
what is to be done with a public largely fed on the 
garbage printed in most of the British dailies and 
weeklies now that war Is a paying game for jlngo- 
Ists? It was bad enough in times of panic before 



228 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

hostilities began; but now every day in the week 
the public is brutally assaulted by columns in the 
press more dangerous to the British people than all 
the Kaiser's legions past and to come. At the din- 
ner of the Foreign Press Association, May, 19 14, 
Sir Edward Grey said the press " controlled the 
atmosphere, and the temperature of the atmosphere 
would decide what policy it might be possible for 
Governments to carry out." Whether or not the 
foreign press controlled the atmosphere at the time 
of the Balkan crisis, there is no doubt about the con- 
trol of atmosphere of the British press now. De- 
cent journalism lies under a cloud of suspicion and 
dare not deal thoroughly with all the causes which 
brought about the war. The worst features of 
Prussian administration are rampant in the land, and 
a free press has been ousted by a press free chiefly 
to lie and traduce honourable men. But it is not the 
people's fault that the culture of frenzy and fright 
is the order of the day; It is the fault of the Gov- 
ernment. The people have not been given a chance 
to select a culture compatible with true liberty. 
Slaves must take the culture their masters impose. 
If there was one reform more than another needed 
in Britain in the spring of 19 14 it was education. 
Nationally not one-half as much was spent on educa- 
tion as on the navy. But the navy was all right. 
And the army was ready. The Minister for War 
in the Commons on March loth said, "We stand 
well for the purposes of immediate war on any basis 
which you may consider. . . ." The First Lord of 
the Admiralty told the House of Commons that 
forty merchant ships had been armed with two 4.7 
guns apiece. On the debate on the Naval Position 



PERTINENT QUESTIONS 229 

in the Mediterranean, March i8th, Sir Edward Grey 
was sure " the good understandings which have ex- 
isted and which exist between ourselves and France 
and Russia have undoubtedly during the last trou- 
blous times contributed to the peace of Europe. . . . 
We consider that they make for peace." The de- 
bates in the Commons on the Army and Navy were 
of deep interest. Mr. Amery intervened again and 
dealt with the position in Europe : 

" It is not a question of our dealing single-handed with 
one of the great European Powers. We have been com- 
mitted by our foreign policy to the support of a certain 
grouping of Powers and it is our duty to supply not only 
naval strength but military strength to prevent that group- 
ing being broken down. What good would it be to us 
winning a victory at sea if our allies were crushed and de- 
feated on land ? " 

Then in the debate on the Navy Estimates, 
March i8th, 19 14, the question of our position in 
Europe was raised by several members. Lord 
Charles Beresford dealt severely with the First 
Lord: 

" I ask the First Lord : Are we going to trust to France 
to defend us in the Mediterranean? That is a very definite 
question. If we are, what are we to give France in re- 
turn? It has come out quite lately that we have not got 
an Expeditionary Force that we could send away to France 
if France needed it. The Secretary for War could not 
answer that question, and we know — everybody knows — 
we could not afford to send that Expeditionary Force away 
if England and France were engaged in a war against some 
one else. I say that is a very dangerous position. We are 
metaphorically to sell our friends. They are to look after 
our enormous interests in the Mediterranean because we 



230 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

cannot have a fleet there. What are we going to do for 
France? It may be very disagreeable but we are liable 
with these ententes and alliances. When we had command 
of the sea and trusted to our own right hands we wanted 
no ententes and alliances and the British Fleet was a factor 
for peace." 

Yes, indeed: and Lord Charles Beresford was not 
alone in casting back a glance to the days of 
Britain's splendid isolation. There were many men 
who heartily disliked the international prospect, but 
on reflection they consoled themselves with the as- 
surances so often given by the Prime Minister and 
the Foreign Secretary that we were under no obliga- 
tion to give armed support to France or Russia. 
In the Commons Sir Mark Sykes and Mr. Herbert 
delivered speeches full of foreboding as to Russian 
influence and aspiration. When the question of 
troops for Ulster was raised. Colonel Burn asked the 
Foreign Secretary " whether In the event of troops 
being employed In Ulster over an extended period, 
the Government are In a position to carry out our 
military understanding with France." Sir Edward 
Grey said the Prime Minister could not " undertake 
to reply to a purely hypothetical question." 

It was a stormy session and the House lost heavily 
in dignity while the Government gained little In 
prestige. The party of law and order preached 
sedition and anarchy In the House and in the coun- 
try, and the young bloods of Toryism at the same 
time planned to stop procedure by shouting Minis- 
ters down. Manners fell to the depths of vulgarity, 
and wisdom in disgust often flew away and found 
refuge in the jug-and-bottle corners of lowly pubs. 

How was It with Germany before the murder of 



GERMANY'S SPECIAL AIM 231 

the archduke? First, let us avoid making the mis- 
take of many publicists that every speech of Kaiser 
or Chancellor which bristled with phrases of Treits- 
chke was aimed at Britain. Bernhardi has told us 
war with England was hopeless from the German 
position, and he can be accepted as an authority. It 
was hopeless. With our navy for the North Sea, 
and France guarding the Mediterranean, no one 
save a Jingo lunatic could really believe for a mo- 
ment that the time had come for Germany to try her 
strength with us. Bernhardi said, " The English 
Government knows well that Germany cannot think 
on her side of attacking England, because such an 
attempt is in itself hopeless." Furthermore, in the 
report sent in the summer of 19 13 from Berlin to 
M. Pichon, the then French Minister for Foreign 
Affairs (see No. 5, in French Yellow Book), we are 
told: 

" It is hardly likely that Germany will take the risk if 
France can make it clear to the world that the Entente 
Cordiale and the Russian Alliance are not merely diplomatic 
fictions but realities which exist and will make themselves 
felt. The English fleet inspires a wholesome terror. It is 
well known, however, that victory on sea will leave every- 
thing in suspense. On land alone can a decisive issue be 
obtained." 

What then was Germany's special aim in Europe 
in the spring of last year? Russia. Most undoubt- 
edly; and Germany made no pretence of hiding her 
design. Russia was regarded as a peril. Dr. Dil- 
lon himself said, " Among the new or newly intensi- 
fied currents of political life now traversing the Con- 
tinent of Europe, none can be compared in its cul- 



232 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tural and political bearings and Influence with the 
rivalry between the Slav and Teutonic races." The 
feeling In Russia was quite as deep as It was In 
Germany. " Europe Is not big enough for both 
Slav and German aspirations," was the way a Rus- 
sian put It two winters ago. Men who are steeped 
in the atmosphere of the chancelleries are prone to 
give their opinions In the colours of the last foreign 
office they have visited, and that is the only way 
one can explain so much of the bewildering rubbish 
written In the British reviews since the beginning of 
the war. It might have been planned by Germany 
to force Russia Into a conflict; Germany might have 
arranged with Austria to take the murder of the 
archduke as the favourable moment for forcing 
Russia's hand; Germany might have counted at one 
time on the Triple Alliance holding good In the event 
of war; but that Germany was prepared last year for 
a struggle in which she and Austria alone would meet 
the Triple Entente and Belgium, Is an assumption 
which the facts do not support. At least as early as 
the beginning of July, 19 14, when the tip came from 
Rome to London, Germany must have known for 
certain that she could not count on Italy. There 
were, however, many other problems of a political 
nature that might have urged the Kaiser and his 
friends to find a solution of them In a big war. So- 
cial Democracy was one, and a serious one. In the 
forefront of their programme, at the last General 
Election, was placed. Abolition of Compulsory Mili- 
tary Service; then the vote of Social Democracy in- 
creased by 1,250,000, and the party became the big- 
gest in the Reichstag. At bye-elections the Kaiser 
saw Social Democracy win its way into Junker 



GERMANY'S HOME AFFAIRS 233 

strongholds. Moreover, the problem of the unem- 
ployed taxed the wit of the bureaucrats at headquar- 
ters to the utmost; and during the winter of 19 13 
they did not know how to grapple effectively with 
it. Germany was faced with another winter of still 
greater trade depression, and the position may be 
imagined by what the Berliner Tagehlatt said then 
about unemployment: "Things are the same all 
over the Empire. Whoever looks about our build- 
ing-places, factories, offices, and pubhc businesses 
knows that work is often going on only at half- 
power, — that is, where it has not ceased altogether. 
At the present moment, dismissals not only of or- 
dinary workmen, but also of clerks and other em- 
ployes, are more numerous than probably at any 
time in the past." Prices were rising higher and 
higher; discontent was growing in every district; 
and the " enemy at home, - to use Prince Henry of 
Prussia's phrase for Social Democracy, were ex- 
tremely restless. 

Furthermore, the dislike of Prussian arrogance 
on the part of the southern German States had been 
growing m intensity since the days of Prince Ho- 
henlohe. Bavaria was not seeing eye to eye with 
Prussia In the all-military ambitions of the Kaiser. 
There was not that unanimity in the Empire that 
some writers believe ; and in many small States there 
was grave discontent when the new taxation for 
military purposes was imposed, not so long ago. 
Saxony, Wiirttemberg, and Bavaria were not happy 
under Prussian rule; they had lost much of their in- 
dividuality, their ambitions and characteristics, in the 
confederation. There may be more than a few who 
live In these smaller States who will not spend many 



234 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

days in mourning if Prussia is overthrown in this 
struggle. 

Let us for a moment look at the territorial ques- 
tion. All imperial ambition on the Continent must 
have a western goal. Germany with a population 
of 65,000,000 finds her way blocked by Holland 
with a home population of only 6,000,000, and 
colonies containing over 800,000 square miles; finds 
her way blocked by Belgium with a population of 
7,500,000; and again finds her way blocked by 
France with a population of 40,000,000. These 
countries standing in the way of her westward prog- 
ress all have far superior maritime advantages; be- 
sides, Germany has no outlet to the Mediterranean. 
Her geographical position, for a great maritime 
power, is not dignified; so German opinion has often 
said. Indeed it has been pointed out by great mer- 
chants in articles on this matter that international 
justice, whatever that may be, is not meted out to 
Germany for her gigantic development in ships and 
sea-borne commerce. The German says, " You peo- 
ple don't know what we have done; we have two 
lines, the Hamburg-American and the North Ger- 
man Lloyd, with a tonnage of over 2,000,000." 
To this the German thinks the great western nations 
reply, " Build your Vaterlands in the Baltic, and be 
content with Hamburg and Bremen for your ports, 
though you have to spend an extra day in getting to 
the Atlantic. Don't come bothering us with your 
worries." Nevertheless, it is just as well these na- 
tions should realize the Vaterland is typical of Ger- 
many's ambition. She was built for the west. Con- 
sider Germany's disadvantages, those under which 
she must compete, and then think of the recent rise 



A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 235 

of Russia and her unrivalled resources. Russia also 
must push west. She is no more content to build 
the fleets of her maritime dreams on the Baltic than 
Germany is to build those of her present need. 
Russia is pressing Germany, urging her west, fur- 
ther west, every year; and the enormous weight of 
140,000,000 of people in European Russia, with al- 
most unparalleled attractions for financiers, is a bat- 
tering-ram the Teutonic people cannot withstand for 
long, without something breaking. But the great 
western maritime nations say, " What we have, we 
hold." Germany replies, " Then we must have a 
look at your title deeds, for Russia intends to have 
a look at ours." 

The position in France was chaotic enough to in- 
spire the Kaiser with hope of tackling Russia with- 
out efl^ective French aid. It is, however, not likely 
that the Kaiser accepted all the statements of the 
gossips as to French unpreparedness. True, there 
were the revelations in the French Senate, and the 
campaign against the new conscription laws. Cer- 
tainly France was looking forward to bigger strikes 
than those she had left behind. New conscription 
laws might help to avert industrial catastrophes 
such as that which threatened France in Briand's 
day; but on the other hand labour was making cer- 
tain that in the future no strike would go off at half- 
cock. Jaures was a power for peace, and always an 
outspoken critic of French foreign policy. It was 
Jaures more than any one who brought about the 
downfall of Delcasse in 1905. 

Italy was suffering from a most unpopular war in 
Africa. There were scandals connected with mili- 
tary administration; the unpreparedness of the army 



236 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

to meet European complications was notorious. 
The greatest strike she had ever known had alarmed 
the authorities from one end of the country to an- 
other; and, what is of some consequence, when 
journalists and statesmen were praising Italy for her 
neutrality, anti-Austrian feeling was far more evi- 
dent than was her chagrin at the action of France 
and the speech of M. Polncare about the seizure of 
i French steamers by the Italians. 

It has been said by Italian statesmen that Austria 
wished to send in August, 19 13, an ultimatum to 
Servia, " substantially Identical with that sent last 
July," and that the Marquis dl San Giuliano commu- 
nicated the Information to the Italian ex-Premier, 
Signor Giolltti. Italy, however, declined to support 
her ally in a war against Servia, and Germany also 
refused to be a party to that note. Post bellum liter- 
ature, of many colours, contains a great number of 
striking contradictions. In the official documents 
published by the Governments not only are there to 
be found Innumerable alterations of dates and sup- 
pressions of facts, but also stupid errors which reveal 
peculiar kinks and cavities in the diplomatic memory. 
Take, for instance, the revelations of the Italian ex- 
Premier as to the communication of the Marquis di 
San Giuliano In August, 19 13, that Austria then de- 
sired to send to Servia an ultimatum " substantially 
Identical with that sent last July." 

M. Barrere, the French ambassador at Rome, on 
July 27th, 19 14, sent to his Government the follow- 
ing information: 

" The Marquis di San Giuliano returned to Rome this 
evening, and I saw him immediately after his arrival. He 
spoke to me of the contents of the Austrian note, and as- 



ITALY PLAYING SAFE 237 

sured me that he had had no previous knowledge of them 
whatever. He was well aware that the note was to be 
vigorous and energetic in character, but he had no idea 
that it could take such ^ form. I asked him if it was true, 
as is stated in certain newspapers, that in this connexion 
he had expressed in Vienna approval of Austrian action, 
and had given the assurance that Italy would fulfil her 
duties as an ally towards Austria. He replied, ' In no way 
have we been consulted ; we have been told nothing what- 
ever. We have therefore had no reason to make any com- 
munication of this nature in Vienna.' " 

The Marquis meant, presumably, that a " sub- 
stantially identical " note had been submitted to him 
by the Austrian Government in August, 19 13, but 
he had no diplomatic recollection of it when he saw 
the note of July, 19 14. So free from all the preju- 
dices of common life are the minds of diplomatists, 
that Austria's wish to crush Servia made no differ- 
ence at all to the friendship of the Powers of the 
Triple Alliance; their relations moved along as 
smoothly after the knowledge of Austria's desire as 
before. Italy in all probability knew exactly what 
the true state of affairs was, and as she was not 
ready to undertake the cost of another war, in which 
Austria would find not Servia, but Russia, the domi- 
nant force arrayed against her, Italy played for 
safety. Her wisdom in that was counted for right- 
eousness by those countries which benefited through 
her ulterior motives ; then the Entente Powers were 
so delighted with her decision to remain neutral that 
they all desired to let her have the honour of join- 
ing the forces of the Allies in the field. 

After a period of diplomatic huckstering with 
Germany and Austria — whom she could not sup- 



238 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

port in an offensive war — she decided to make a 
seventh against her former allies and joined in the 
fray " for the sake of honour, justice, and Christi- 
anity." 

The revelations of Italian diplomatists seem to 
throw the onus of instigating the war on Austria; an 
unpopular thing to do, for the information of Aus- 
tria's desire to send an ultimatum to Servia in Au- 
gust, 1 9 13, makes it awkward for those who insist 
on placing the authorship of the Austrian note of 
July 24th, 1 9 14, on the Kaiser. 

Racial feeling in Austria was deep. Her many 
different races were not living in peace and content- 
ment under the Dual Monarchy. Industrial de- 
pression in the large towns was quite as severe as 
it was in Germany. Vienna had become fretfully 
expectant of riots. High prices and low wages were 
problems which gave the Government grave concern; 
and the housing difficulties in Vienna were growing 
every day in intensity, more alarming indeed to the 
Imperial Government than Narodna Odbrana. 
Austria was threatened with as grave an internal 
crisis as any country ever faced. 

And Russia, the latter-day heaven of French and 
British financiers. How was it with Russia? Bar- 
ricades on Monday, with yells of " Down with the 
Government ! " and solidarity on Tuesday with hal- 
lelujahs of "Freedom for Slavs!" A change so 
electrical that It completely paralyzed the French. 
From strikes such as Russia had never known, to 
one complete accord in twenty-four hours, was one 
of the most mysterious conjuring tricks any govern- 
ment ever accomplished with a people. No one in 
western Europe believed the Little Father and the 



A KALEIDOSCOPIC TURN 239 

icon were so powerful. It must have startled the 
German Emperor and Count Berchtold out of their 
diplomatic wits! What had become of all the un- 
rest in the army? ' What about Russia's largely- 
advertised unpreparedness for war? How could 
a country whose financial condition was said to be 
desperate, be enthusiastic for war? And so soon 
after the crushing defeat inflicted by Japan! No 
wonder many marvelled at the change. This, the 
country that sent her ships down the North Sea a 
few years ago when her Admirals were scared to 
death by a lot of innocent trawlers ! This, the Rus- 
sia whose monarch not so long ago dare not land in 
England! Where were anarchism, nihilism, and 
the intellectuals? Was Siberia forgotten? 

To the keen observer of European affairs, not 
affected in his views with the schemes and intrigues 
of the chancelleries, the change which overcame the 
workers in the different nations during July was most 
amazing. From predictions of tumbling thrones to 
war-like unanimity in a few days, beat all the aspira- 
tions of Monarchial Leagues to smithereens. But 
how many publicists, now so busy whitewashing En- 
tente Powers, realize all those great political causes 
which underlie the actions of all the Powers in July, 
19 14? It is not remembered that Russia, not so 
many years ago, was regarded in British diplomatic 
circles as a danger to the peace of Europe, and a 
Power beyond the European pale, inimical to west- 
ern civilization. As our diplomatists looked upon 
Russia in Lord Granville's day, so have German 
diplomatists looked upon her; at least since she 
fostered the growth of Slav power in the Balkans. 
Germany's fears of Russia to-day are the fears of 



240 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Britain in our fathers' time. Germany knew that 
it was predicted that the Slav would be all ready in 
19 1 6 to try conclusions with her. Who would at- 
tempt the task of trying to convince German and 
Austrian diplomacy that Russia diplomacy was not 
at the back of the Greater Servian propaganda? It 
is all very well to concentrate public attention on the 
task that lies before Britain now, but some one must 
think of what the future is to be. And it is not 
wise to hide the diplomatic welter behind this busi- 
ness from the people who are supposed, by short- 
sighted journalists and politicians, to pass from it 
into an era of peace, and milk and honey. Alison 
told us long ago that the civilization of western Eu- 
rope must finally fall before the fresh vigour of the 
rude but mighty hordes of Russia and northern Asia. 
Nietzsche, too, was conscious of that probability. 
All highly industrialized civilizations must in the 
long run go under to millions of pastoralists. It is 
not so long since deeply religious men and women 
in Britain prayed earnestly to be protected from the 
power of Russia. The Russia of Tolstoy and of 
Dostoevsky is not the Russia we have to fear, or 
the one Germany fears. It is the Russia of grand 
dukes, exploiting financiers, corrupt bureaucrats, and 
a diplomacy which aims at Slav domination in Cen- 
tral Europe ! 

Now, to look into the White Paper and try to un- 
ravel the maze of diplomatic entanglements. The 
Austrian archduke was murdered at Serajevo, June 
28th. There followed a strange diplomatic silence 
for three weeks. The first despatch in the White 
Paper is dated July 20th, and it was sent by Sir Ed- 
ward Grey to our ambassador at Berlin, not Vienna. 



QUESTION AND ANSWER 241 

What had been taking place In the chancelleries since 
June 28th? The Austrian royalty had, after many 
family squabbles, burled the archduke, and by the 
time our Foreign Office began despatch-making, the 
world outside diplomacy had begun to forget that 
there had been an archduke to bury. Not until 
July 27th, was the question of Austria and Servia 
referred to In the House of Commons. Then Sir 
Edward Grey told the House that he had proposed 
a conference the day before. He was asked by Mr. 
Lawson If It were true that the German Emperor 
had that morning accepted the principle of media- 
tion which the Foreign Secretary had proposed. Sir 
Edward Grey's reply to that question was, " I under- 
stand that the German Government are favourable 
to the idea of mediation in principle as between 
Austria-Hungary and Russia, but that as to the par- 
ticular proposal of applying that principle by means 
of a conference which I have described to the House, 
the reply of the German Government has not yet 
been received." 

Now let us see where we are. The special fleet 
mobilization took place on July 13th. In despatch 
No. 66, French Yellow Book, M. de Fleurlau, 
French charge d'af aires at London, Informed his 
Government on July 27th that: 

" The attitude of Great Britain is confirmed by the post- 
ponement of the demobilization of the Fleet. The First 
Lord of the Admiralty took this measure quietly on Friday 
on his own initiative." 

That Friday was July 24th; the day after the 
Austrian note was delivered to the Servian Govern- 
ment. 



242 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

The fleet sailed from Weymouth on July 27th: 
as the Times of that day said, " a welcome earnest 
of our intention to be ready for any course which 
the national interests may render desirable." The 
Foreign Secretary had been in communication with 
ambassadors since July 20th. Not for a week after 
the first despatch was sent did the House of Com- 
mons get a word from the Foreign Secretary about 
the business; and then the gist of his statement was 
that he had proposed a conference of four Powers, 
France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain. But a 
great deal had happened before he made that pro- 
posal. Though he told the House that Britain had 
no title to interfere so long as the dispute was one 
between Austria-Hungary and Servia alone, he was 
fully conscious when he saw the German ambassador 
on July 20th, that a war between any of the great 
Powers over Servia would be detestable, and the Ger- 
man ambassador " agreed wholeheartedly In this 
sentiment." On the 23rd, Sir Edward saw Count 
Mensdorff and learned from him that all would de- 
pend upon Russia, but that he was under the impres- 
sion that the attitude in Petersburg had not been 
favourable recently. The Austrian note to Servia 
was published on the 24th. 

The despatch of July 24th from Petersburg, No. 
6 in the White Paper, Is a document of great sig- 
nificance. Our ambassador in this despatch says that 
M. Sazonof, the Russian Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs, said some of Austria's demands were quite im- 
possible of acceptance. He hoped that the British 
Government would not fail to proclaim their solidar- 
ity with Russia and France. The French ambassa- 
dor at the same time told our representative that 



M. SAZONOF'S PLEA 243 

France would fulfil all the obligations entailed by her 
alliance with Russia. When the British ambassador 
pointed out that Britain's interests in Servia were nil, 
and that he saw no reason why Russia should expect 
any declaration of solidarity from Britain to support 
Russia and France unconditionally by force of arms, 
M. Sazonof replied that Britain must not forget that 
the general European question was involved; Britain 
could not efface herself from the problems then at 
issue. Our ambassador said that M. Sazonof and 
the French representative continued to press him 
for a declaration of complete solidarity. The Rus- 
sian Minister said that he thought Russian mobiliza- 
tion would at any rate have to be carried out. In 
concluding the despatch our ambassador said it 
seemed to him from the language held by the French 
ambassador, that, even if Britain declined to join 
them, France and Russia were determined to make 
a strong stand.^ 

None of this was communicated to the House 
when the Foreign Secretary made his statement on 
the 27th. What on earth then was the good of say- 
ing our interests in Servia were nil, when the Russian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs had decided on July 
24th, " that the general European question was in- 
volved, the Servian question being but a part of the 
former"? Russia began to mobilize on July 25th, 
according to the Czar's own telegram to the Kaiser. 
In Vienna, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs told the Russian representative that the Dual 
Monarchy felt that its very existence was at stake, 

1 This sentence, and the one in the despatch referring to the re- 
turn of the French President and the President of the Council from 
Russia to France, are suppressed from the French Yellow Book. 



244 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

and that the step taken (the strong note to Servia 
with a short time-limit) had caused great satisfac- 
tion throughout the country. That meant the Dual 
Monarchy, Austria-Hungary, must be preserved 
from Internal disorder at all costs. Germany said 
It was a matter which concerned Austria and Servia 
exclusively, and that other Powers should keep out 
of It, owing to different treaty obligations. Sir Ed- 
ward Grey In the toils Is one of the most pathetic 
pictures In history; European entanglements were 
then weaving the net for his destruction. The 
retiarii of the Continental system were not so nice 
about the rules of the arena as our Foreign Secre- 
tary. How powerless he was to avert the strife Is 
shown In his own despatch of the 24th to our ambas- 
sador at Paris, No. 10 : 

" M. Cambon said that, if there was a chance of medi- 
ation by the four Powers, he had no doubt that his Govern- 
ment would be glad to join in it; but he pointed out that 
we could not say anything in St. Petersburg till Russia had 
expressed some opinion or taken some action. ... I said 
that I had not contemplated anything being said in St. 
Petersburg until after it was clear that there must be 
trouble between Austria and Russia." 

But the French ambassador told him that It would 
be too late after Austria had once moved against 
Servia. The first communication Sir Edward sent 
to Russia was on July 25th, when he instructed our 
ambassador that Austria had explained that the note 
to Servia was not an ultimatum, but a step with a 
time-limit. Russia did not however accept that view. 
She was willing enough to leave the question In the 
hands of the four Powers, If Servia would appeal 
to them to arbitrate. In the despatch from our 



QUIS CUSTODIET CUSTODES? 245 

ambassador at Petersburg, July 25th, No. 17, we 
learn: 

" On my expressing the earnest hope that Russia would 
not precipitate war by mobilizing until you (Sir Edward 
Grey) had had time to use your influence in favour of 
peace, his Excellency (Russian Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs) assured me that Russia had no aggressive intentions, 
and she would take no action until it was forced on her. 
Austria's action was in reality directed against Russia. She 
aimed at overthrowing the present status quo in the Balkans, 
and establishing her own hegemony there. He did not be- 
lieve that Germany really wanted war, but her attitude was 
decided by ours. If we took our stand firmly with France 
and Russia there would be no war. If we failed them now, 
rivers of blood would flow, and we would in the end be 
dragged into the war. I said that England would play 
the role of mediator at Berlin and Vienna to better purpose 
as friend who, if her counsels of moderation were disre- 
garded, might one day be converted into an ally, than if 
she were to declare herself Russia's ally at once. His 
Excellency said that unfortunately Germany was convinced 
tfiat she could count on our neutrality. I said all I could 
to impress prudence on the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
and warned him that if Russia mobilized, Germany would 
not be content with mere mobilization, or give Russia time 
to carry out hers, but would probably declare war at once." / 

The day before that conversation took place the 
British House of Commons had been discussing a 
Housing Bill. The House was up the next day, and 
who of its great body of private members had the 
faintest conception of what was taking place in diplo- 
matic circles? Well might Juvenal ask who shall 
guard the guardians themselves. 

From Berlin our ambassador telegraphed to Sir 
Edward Grey that the German Minister for Foreign 



246 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Affairs said that he had given the Russian Govern- 
ment to understand that the last thing Germany 
wanted was a general war, and that he would do all 
in his power to prevent such a calamity. If the re- 
lations between Austria and Russia became threaten- 
ing he was quite ready to fall in with Sir Edward's 
suggestion as to the four Powers working in favour 
of moderation at Vienna and Petersburg. The 
Servian reply did not satisfy Austria, and her Min- 
ister left Belgrade on the 25th. Sir Edward then 
telegraphed to Petersburg that in his opinion the only 
chance of peace was for the four Powers to join in 
asking the Austrian and Russian Governments not 
to cross the frontier, and to give time for the four 
Powers acting at Vienna and Petersburg to try and 
arrange matters. Desperate efforts were made by 
Sir Edward Grey on the 25th, and 26th, to bring 
about the conference, but without success. The Brit- 
ish ambassador at Vienna telegraphed on the 27th, 
that " the country had gone wild with joy at the 
prospect of war with Servia, and its postponement 
or prevention would undoubtedly be a great disap- 
pointment. It seemed to him that the Austrian 
note was so drawn up as to make war inevitable." 
France was willing to join the conference, but until it 
was known that the Germans had spoken at Vienna 
with some success, she thought it would be dangerous 
for the French, Russian, and British ambassadors to 
do so. 

That is a fair summary of what had taken place 
when Sir Edward Grey made his statement to the 
House on Monday, July 27th. Now, Germany 
would have nothing to do with the suggestion of the 
four Powers acting together, for it had the appear- 



THE CZAR'S TELEGRAM 247 

ance of a court of arbitration; and she preferred an 
exchange of views between the Austrian and Russian 
Governments. In despatch No. 43, our ambassador 
at Berlin recorded a conversation he had on July 
27th, with the German Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs: 

" Secretary of State said that as yet Austria was only 
partially mobilizing, but that if Russia mobilized against 
Germany latter would have to follow suit. I asked him 
what he meant by ' mobilizing against Germany.' He said 
that if Russia only mobilized in the south, Germany would 
not mobilize, but if she mobilized in north, Germany would 
have to do so too, and Russian system of mobilization was 
so complicated that it might be difficult exactly to locate her 
mobilization. Germany would therefore have to be very 
careful not to be taken by surprise." 

But Germany was taken by surprise ; for although 
Russia might not have begun mobilizing on the north, 
she had been mobilizing on the south for two days, 
and her complicated system of mobilization was com- 
phcated further by a rumour which was sent out 
that she feared an insurrection in Russian Poland. 
The British ambassador at Petersburg urged the 
Russian Government on the 27th, to defer the mo- 
bilization ukase for as long as possible, and that 
troops might not be allowed to cross the frontier 
even when it was Issued. To this the Russian Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs replied that, until the Issue 
of the Imperial ukase, no effective steps towards 
mobilization could be taken; and the Austrian Gov- 
ernment would profit by delay. In order to complete 
her military preparations, If it were deferred too 
long. Yet the Czar in his telegram to the Kaiser 
said on July 30th, " The mihtary measures now com- 



248 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ing into operation were decided upon five days ago 
for reasons of defence against Austria's prepara- 
tions " ! 

Later in the day on the 27th, our ambassador at 
Petersburg sent word that Russia rejected Sir Ed- 
ward Grey's proposal of a conference of the four 
Powers. Direct conversation between Vienna and 
Petersburg was to be Russia's way of dealing with 
the question. 

In reading the British White Paper, one should 
bear in mind that it was not In the hands of mem- 
bers of Parliament until August 6th; and that, shortly 
after the war began, the great mass of the British 
people learned through our press that everything 
German was "Potsdam nonsense" and chicanery; 
that the German ambassador at London was worse 
than a fool ; that the German Chancellor planned the 
whole calamity ; and that nothing In our diplomatic 
relations with Germany should be accepted from 
German sources as containing a scintilla of truth. 
Editors and journalists of German extraction have 
done not a little in educating British opinion up to 
that standard of patriotism which rejoices in the no- 
tion that all opponents are liars. Notwithstanding, 
Sir Edward Grey had to deal with the German For- 
eign Office, and extend the courtesies of diplomacy 
to the German ambassador up to the time he left 
London. On July 27th, Sir Edward sent a despatch 
to our ambassador at Berlin saying: 

" German ambassador has informed me that German 
Government accept in principle mediation between Austria 
and Russia by the four Powers, reserving;, of course, their 
right as an ally to help Austria if attacked. He has also 
been instructed to request me to use influence in St. Peters- 



SIR EDWARD IN THE TOILS 249 

burg to localize the war and to keep up the peace of 
Europe." 

Whether the information tendered by the German 
ambassador was to be accepted as an honest en- 
deavour on Germany's part to assist in keeping peace 
or not, it was too late to bring the conference to work 
effectually; for Russia had that day decided that 
direct conversation between Vienna and Petersburg 
should be the method of finding a solution. But the 
pressure of France and Russia was too much for the 
British Foreign Secretary. What our ambassador 
at Petersburg told him on the 24th, was the chief 
consideration, — namely, British solidarity with 
Russia and France, — was begun by him on the 27th, 
the day he told the House of Commons that it was 
necessary in the interests of peace to suspend all 
military operations pending the result of the confer- 
ence. The very day he urged the German ambassa- 
dor to press for moderation on Austria's part, he 
sent the following despatch to our ambassador at 
Petersburg: 

" I have been told by the Russian ambassador that in 
German and Austrian circles impression prevails that in 
any event we (Britain) would stand aside. His Excellency 
deplored the effect that such an impression must produce. 
This impression ought, as I have pointed out, to be dis- 
pelled by the orders we have given to the First Fleet, which 
is concentrated, as it happens, at Portland, not to disperse 
for raancEuvre leave. But I explained to the Russian am- 
bassador that my reference to it must not be taken to mean 
that anything more than diplomatic action was promised." 

Orders were issued to the Fleet on the 25th. The 
third Fleet was mobilized on the 13th. Several pa- 



250 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

pers, with well-informed naval correspondents, have 
told us " Mr. Churchill was almost the only Minister 
who appreciated the gravity of the situation, and is 
understood to have given early orders ' on his own ' 
for the mobilization of the entire British Fleet," 
and " a fortnight before the Servian coup. . . . 
Italy was told there was going to be a storm . . . 
the English ambassador got the tip. Hence the as- 
sembly of the whole Fleet for inspection by the King. 
Mr. Churchill's extraordinary courage, decision, and 
foresight were never excelled by his great ancestor. 
England, thanks to Mr. Churchill, begins the war 
at her selected moment, not at the chosen moment 
of the Mad Dog of Europe." These, and many 
statements of the same kind, were made at the out- 
break of hostilities. No one will wish to take one 
bit of credit from Mr. Churchill for his courage, 
foresight and administrative skill, but here we are 
dealing with diplomacy, and Mr. Churchill was First 
Lord of the Admiralty, not Foreign Secretary. 
Therefore, when Sir Edward Grey sent despatch No. 
47 to Petersburg, the Admiralty intended France 
and Russia to understand that the British Fleet was 
all for the solidarity of the Entente Powers, no mat- 
ter what the Foreign Secretary said. But the House 
of Commons as a whole knew nothing about it at 
all, save that " British interests in Servia were nil," 
and that the European situation was exceedingly 
grave. 

On the day the hint was given In a despatch to 
Russia that the Fleet was ready, Russia took a firmer 
attitude towards Austria. M. Sazonof said, " It 
seems to me that England is in a better position than 
any other Power to make another attempt at Berlin 



MARKING TIME 251 

to induce the German Government to take the neces- 
sary action. There is no doubt that the key of the 
situation is to be found at Berhn." Our ambassador 
at Petersburg spoke to M. Sazonof on the 27th, and 
learned from him that he required Austria to guar- 
antee the integrity of Servia and respect her rights 
as a sovereign State. The position seemed not hope- 
less, however, for our ambassador at Vienna in des- 
patch No. ^6, told Sir Edward Grey that the Russian 
ambassador at Vienna had just returned from Peters- 
burg, and knew the views of the Russian Govern- 
ment and the state of Russian public opinion: 

" He (Russian ambassador at Vienna) had just heard of 
a satisfactory conversation which the Russian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs had yesterday with the Austrian ambassador 
at Petersburg. The former agreed that much of the 
Austro-Hungarian note to Servia had been perfectly rea- 
sonable; and in fact they had practically reached an under- 
standing as to the guarantees which Servia might reasonably 
be asked to give to Austria-Hungary for her future good 
behaviour." 

So the game of diplomatic chess was carried on 
for at least a week. Despatching to this capital 
and that capital, interviewing this Excellency and 
that Minister, recording the gossip of one chancel- 
lery and another, while the military and naval men 
behind all the mask of diplomacy were preparing for 
the conflict which those " in the know " were for 
the most part eager to begin. On July 28th, the 
Prime Minister told the House, " There are no new 
developments sufficiently definite to enable any fur- 
ther statement to be made, but we hope that no un- 
favourable inference will be drawn from this. I can- 
not say more." He said he had no definite Informa- 



252 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

tion that hostilities had broken out, yet in despatch 
56, our ambassador at Vienna was informed by the 
Austrian Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Af- 
fairs, that " a skirmish had already taken place on 
the Danube, in which the Servians had been the ag- 
gressors." The moving of the British Fleet stiffened 
the attitude of Russia, and action on the part of 
Servia was at no time undertaken without the ad- 
vice of Russia, if we are to believe a tenth of all the 
rumours which came surging from the east during 
the first weeks of the war.^ 

The sincerity of Germany was questioned in des- 
patch No. 60, when the German Secretary of State 
refused to join the conference of the four Powers, and 
at the same time said he desired to work with Britain 
for the maintenance of general peace. Where was 
the British Fleet on July 28th? Did the action of 
the Admiralty inspire the German Foreign Office 
with confidence in working with us to maintain the 
general peace? What other fleet was there in the 
North Sea that so urgently required the attention 
of our Admiralty on July 27th? Anyway, whether 
Germany tried to influence Austria along the lines 
of moderation or not, our ambassador at Vienna tele- 
graphed on the 28th, that " the Austrian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs declared that Austria-Hungary 
could not delay warlike proceedings against Servia, 
and would have to decline any suggestion of negotia- 
tions on the basis of Servian reply. Prestige of 
Dual Monarchy was engaged, and nothing could now 
prevent conflict." 

i"The future of Servia is secure now that it is the object of 
Your Majesty's gracious solicitude," so Prince Alexander of Servia 
telegraphed to the Czar. 



INEFFECTUAL NEGOTIATIONS 253 

What had happened to force Austria to drop the 
conversations with Russia that were progressing in 
Petersburg two or three days earlier? Two mat- 
ters of vital importance: one was the consideration 
of Entente solidarity, which was, Indeed, of far 
greater consequence to Russia than mere diplomatic 
armed support; and, the second was the skirmish on 
the Danube, where Servia had been the aggressor. 
War was declared by Austria on Servia that day. 
Then Sir Edward Grey dropped his proposal of a 
conference like a hot brick, and sent word to the 
British ambassador at Berlin that " as long as there 
is a prospect of a direct exchange of views between 
Austria and Russia, I would suspend every other sug- 
gestion, as I entirely agree that it is the most prefer- 
able method of all." The German Government then 
accepted the principle of mediation between Austria 
and Russia by the four Powers; but again it was too 
late, for Russia decided to issue the Imperial ukase 
for mobilization on the 29th without " any aggressive 
intention against Germany." That, so the Russian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs informed the Russian 
ambassador at London, put an end to the idea of 
direct communications between Austria and Russia. 
Then the British Cabinet was urgently desired to in- 
fluence Austria to suspend military operations against 
Servia. 

It is amazing how the chancelleries labour with 
child-like deceptiveness to cover up the work of their 
armed support. Russia began military preparations 
on the 25th, according to the Czar, but the mobiliza- 
tion ukase was not issued until the 29th; yet on the 
28th, M. Sazonof wanted Austria to suspend her 
military operations after Servia had begun hostlli- 



254 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ties on the 27th. The way the world has been duped 
by the preposterous terminology of the chancelleries 
is one of the wonders of the age. Why, on the 
28th, it was known at the Berlin Foreign Office that 
Russia had mobilized fourteen army corps in the 
south; the German Imperial Chancellor told our am- 
bassador that much when the latter telegraphed to 
Sir Edward Grey that his Austrian colleague said 
" that a general war was most unlikely, as Russia 
neither wanted nor was in a position to make war! " 
If the people of Europe will only apply some sense 
and understanding to a study of the British White 
Paper they will find evidence enough in it to condemn 
every diplomatist concerned. 

A great feature of the system of education en- 
tered on by our press in the early stages of the war, 
was the German refusal to join Sir Edward Grey's 
conference. That was a great black mark against 
Germany. Learn from despatch No. 72 what our 
ambassador at St. Petersburg said on the 28th: 
" As regards the suggestion of conference, the am- 
bassador (German) had received no instructions, 
and before acting with me, the French and Italian 
ambassadors are still waiting for their final instruc- 
tions." Then after Russia issued the mobilization 
ukase, and Austria had declared war on Servia, our 
ambassador at Vienna sent the following despatch, 
No. 74: 

" I am informed by the Russian ambassador that the Rus- 
sian Government's suggestion has been declined by the 
Austro-Hungarian Government. . The suggestion was to the 
effect that the means of settling the Austro-Servian conflict 
should be discussed directly between the Russian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs and the Austrian ambassador at St. 



REASONS FOR WAR 255 

Petersburg, who should be authorized accordingly. The 
Russian ambassador thinks that a conference in London of 
the less interested Powers, such as you have proposed, offers 
now the only prospect of preserving peace of Europe, and he 
is sure that the Russian Government will acquiesce willingly 
in your proposal. So long as opposing armies have not actu- 
ally come in contact, all hope need not be abandoned." 

Yet two days earlier the Russian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs and the Austrian Ambassador at 
Petersburg had practically reached an understand- 
ing! 

Can any one believe in the face of all the shuffling, 
wobbling threats and restraints, that either Austria 
or Russia desired peace wholeheartedly? Some- 
thing, — only lightly hinted at in the White Paper, — 
was thrusting both Governments on. Peace to both 
meant very grave internal disorder; war carried the 
chance of consolidating their various peoples. Small 
wonder a distinguished personage was heard to 
gasp on August ist, " Oh, for ten minutes of splen- 
did isolation! " 

From Berlin news came on the 29th, that there 
was depression at the German Foreign Office. The 
Secretary of State was " much troubled by reports 
of mobilization in Russia, and of certain military 
measures, which he did not specify, being taken in 
France. He subsequently spoke of these measures 
to my French colleague, who informed him that 
French Government had done nothing more than 
the German Government had done, namely, recalled 
officers on leave. His Excellency denied German 
Government had done this, but as a matter of fact 
it is true." Far more than that was true; the Brit- 
ish Fleet was then a long, long way from Tipperary. 



256 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Anyway, Russian officers left Switzerland as early 
as July 15th. 

It was on July 28th that the royalties began to 
take a hand at telegraphing. The Kaiser sent a 
message to his devoted friend and cousin Nicholas, 
saying, " Remembering the hearty friendship which 
for long had bound us two securely together, I am 
throwing the whole of my Influence Into the scale to 
induce Austria-Hungary to seek for an open and sat- 
isfactory understanding with Russia. I confidently 
hope for your assistance in my endeavours to put 
aside all the difficulties that may arise." 

The Czar replied on the 29th, — " To obviate such 
a misfortune as a European war, I implore you, in 
the name of our old friendship, to do all in your 
power to restrain your ally from going too far." 
Though the Kaiser and Czar could not, of course, 
agree with each other as to the respective merits of 
Austria and Russia in the quarrel, the Kaiser agreed 
to act as mediator, " which I have readily assumed 
in response to your appeal to my friendship and 
help." Then, if we are to believe ambassadors, the 
German Government set to work in earnest to in- 
fluence Austria; to use the phrase of Sir Edward 
Grey, Germany began to " press the button " in the 
interests of peace. Few in Britain believe that, since 
the Jingo press have told us all the diplomatists for- 
got to put In their despatches. The fourth and fifth 
telegrams of the German and Russian monarchs are 
of sufficient interest to give in full: 

"July 30th, I A.M. 

*' My ambassador is instructed to draw the attention of 
your Government to the dangers and serious consequences 
of a mobilization. I said the same to you in my last tele- 



ROYALTY TAKES A HAND 257 

gram. Austria-Hungary has only mobilized against Servia, 
and only a part of its army. If, as appears from your com- 
munication and that of your Government, Russia is mobil- 
izing against Austria-Hungary, the role of mediator which 
you intrusted to me in friendly wise, and which I accepted 
at your express request, is jeopardized, if not rendered im- 
possible. The whole burden of decision now rests upon 
your shoulders, the responsibility for war or peace, 

" William." 

He might not have meant a word of it; it might 
have been all bluff, and the Emperor of Russia might 
have known the true character of the Kaiser almost 
as well as editors of Jingo papers; nevertheless, the 
telegram contained downright good sense. The 
Czar's reply was as follows: 

" Peterhof, July 30th, 1914. 1.20 p.m. 
" From my heart I thank you for your speedy reply. I 
am this evening sending Tatishelf with instructions. The 
military measures now coming into operation were decided 
upon five days ago for reasons of defence against Austria's 
preparations. Most heartily do I trust that these measures 
will in no way influence your position as mediator, which I 
value highly. We need your strong pressure on Austria 
to secure an understanding with us. 

" Nicholas." 

" All would depend on Russia," Count MensdorfE 
said to Sir Edward Grey, on July 23rd. So the 
Kaiser must have thought after he received the tele- 
gram from his devoted friend and cousin, Nicholas. 
" Go on mediating, and use your strong pressure on 
Austria, while we make all our preparations to bring 
a stronger kind of pressure to bear on her later." 
The Petersburg correspondent of the Times, as early 
as the 26th, said that the army manoeuvres had been 



258 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

countermanded in view of the impending mobiliza- 
,' tion, and " military opinion, although ardently de- 
^ siring war, is constrained to admit that Austria- 
\ Hungary is unaccountably dilatory if she really in- 
tends war, inasmuch as it is obviously her interest 
to rush Servia in order to be ready for an attack from 
the north." At that time the war party in Russia 
i were having things their own way. But the tele- 
grams cannot be thoroughly appreciated without the 
following from the Petersburg correspondent of the 
, Times. 

" St. Petersburg, July 27th. 
" The Czar left to-night on his trip to the Finnish 
Skerries. Now that matters appear to have become calmer 
it may not be amiss to quote a sentence used by the Czar at 
the close of the Grand Council on Saturday (25th) : * We 
have stood this sort of thing,' he said, ' for seven and a half 
years. This is enough.' Thereupon his Majesty authorized 
the issue of orders for a partial mobilization confined to the 
14 Army Corps on the Austrian frontier. At the same time 
an intimation was given to Germany that orders for the 
mobilization of the remainder of the Russian Army would 
follow immediately upon mobilization by Germany." 

On July 29th, Renter's Petersburg correspondent 
telegraphed, " Confident of England's support, about 
which doubts have mostly disappeared, the Russian 
[ public is prepared to accept war." Up to one o'clock 
of the morning of July 30th, the court world and 
diplomatic world (save Austria) seemed to be shout- 
ing to the Kaiser to " press the button " in the inter- 
ests of peace, while all the fleets and armies of his 
opponents were busily preparing for war. 

But what about the freest assembly in the world, 



THE HOODWINKED HOUSE 259 

the British House of Commons? What did it know 
about the business? Did it know as much as the 
Russian public? The Prime Minister was ques- 
tioned and said, " As the House is aware, a formal 
Declaration of War was issued yesterday by Austria 
against Servia. The situation at this moment is one 
of extreme gravity. I can only say, usefully say, 
that His Majesty's Government are not relaxing 
their efforts to do everything in their power to cir- 
cumscribe the area of possible conflict." Then the 
House got to work on an Aliens Bill and Scottish 
Agriculture, and at intervals sought the ticker for 
stray scraps of information from the chancelleries. 
Any clerk in a foreign office might know what the 
consequences meant to Europe; any pressman "in 
the know " might get first hand information in 
Russia, or Austria, or Germany; but private members 
of the Freest Assembly in the World were told — 
what they had already seen in the public prints. But 
why should any private member on the Government 
side of the House worry for a single moment? They 
all knew Britain was not under any obligation to go 
to war to support any Power. British interests in 
Servia were nil. Our hands were quite free. We 
had no entangling alliances; Both the Prime Min- 
ister and the Foreign Secretary had time and again 
told the House so much. Indeed one might have 
wondered why the Prime Minister should refer to 
the situation being one of extreme gravity. Such 
in the universal sense it might very well be; but, in 
a national sense, we were out of the area of hostili- 
ties. 

That was the position on July 29th, and the House 



26o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

rose at twelve minutes after three on Thursday morn- 
ing after discussing the Inebriates Bill, with the 
prospect of a debate on the Milk and Dairies Bill 
: after questions that afternoon. 



Nf>^ 



CHAPTER XII 

A GAME OF CHESS 

" In England men will learn with amazement and in- 
credulity that war is possible over the question of a Servian 
port, or even over the larger issues which are said to lie 
behind it. Yet that is whither the nations are blindly drift- 
ing. Who, then, makes war? The answer is to be found 
in the Chancelleries of Europe, among the men who have 
too long played with human lives as pawns in a game of 
chess, who have become so enmeshed in formulas and the 
jargon of diplomacy that they have ceased to be conscious 
of the poignant realities with which they trifle. And thus 
will war continue to be made, until the great masses who 
are the sport of professional schemers and dreamers say the 
word which will bring, not eternal peace, for that is im- 
possible, but a determination that wars shall be fought only 
in a just and righteous and vital cause." 

— The Times, November 26th, 19 12. 

When the House of Commons met on Thursday, 
July 30th, Mr. Bonar Law asked the Foreign Sec- 
retary for information. " There is very little that 
I can say," Sir Edward Grey replied. " I regret I 
cannot say that the situation is less grave than it was 
yesterday. The outstanding facts are the same. 
Austria has begun war against Servia, and Russia has 
ordered a partial mobilization, which has not hith- 
erto led to any corresponding steps by other Powers, 
so far as our information goes. We continue to 
pursue the one great object, to preserve European 

261 



262 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

peace, and for this purpose are keeping in close touch 
with other Powers. In thus keeping in touch, we 
have, I am glad to say, had no difficulties so far, 
though it has not been possible for the Powers to 
unite in joint diplomatic action as was proposed on 
Monday." British interests in Servia were nil, but 
the Admiralty had armed forty merchantmen all the 
same ; the arsenals, factories, and depots were work- 
ing at high pressure; and yet the Foreign Secretary 
could not understand why Germany on the 29th, 
was dilatory in joining the four Powers to use mediat- 
ing influence. That was what he telegraphed to the 
British ambassador at Berlin on July 29th, notwith- 
standing the fact that he had the day before given up 
the notion of a conference, and adopted the idea of 
direct conversations between Austria and Russia, ac- 
cording to his despatch to the same embassy. Early 
on the 29th, he heard from the British ambassador 
at Berlin that Germany was giving advice to Austria. 

I Then the Austrian Government declined definitely 
direct conversation with Petersburg. Why? Rus- 
sia would not stop making all military preparations; 

\ she had been at work since the 25th, and had left no 
stone unturned to perfect her mobilization, which 
was five days ahead of the issue of the ukase. 

Now when the Foreign Secretary told the House 
on July 30th, that there was very little he could say, 
he was in possession of the information contained 
in despatch No. 85 ; the document which records the 
" infamous proposal," so described by Mr. Asquith 
in the House eight days after it was received at the 
Foreign Office. It would be better to glance at the 
whole of it than to tear sentences from their con- 
text: 



THE " INFAMOUS PROPOSAL " 263 

No. 85. 
Sir E, Goschen to Sir Edward Grey. 

(Received July 29th.) 
" Berlin, July 29th, 1914. 

" I was asked to call upon the Chancellor to-night. His 
Excellency had just returned from Potsdam. 

" He said that should Austria be attacked by Russia a 
European conflagration might, he feared, become inevitable, 
owing to Germany's obligations as Austria's ally, in spite of 
his continued efforts to maintain peace. He then proceeded 
to make the following strong bid for British neutrality. He 
said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the 
main principle which governed British policy, that Great 
Britain would never stand by and allow France to be 
crushed in any conflict there might be. That, however, was 
not the object at which Germany aimed. Provided that 
neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance 
would be given to the British Government that the Imperial 
Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the ex- 
pense of France should they prove victorious in any war 
that might ensue. 

" I questioned his Excellency about the French colonies, 
and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertaking 
in that respect. As regards Holland, however, his Excel- 
lency said that, so long as Germany's adversaries respected 
the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany 
was ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance 
that she would do likewise. It depended upon the action) 
of France what operations Germany might be forced to enter] 
upon in Belgium, but when the war was over, Belgian in- J 
tegrity would be respected if she had not sided against! 
Germany. 

" His Excellency ended by saying that ever since he had 
been Chancellor the object of his policy had been, as you 
were aware, to bring about an understanding with England ; 
he trusted that these assurances might form a basis of that 
understanding which he so much desired. He had in mind 



264 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

a general neutrality agreement between England and Ger- 
many, though it was of course at the present moment too 
early to discuss details, and an assurance of British neutrality 
in the conflict which present crisis might possibly produce, 
would enable him to look forward to realization of his 
desire. 

" In reply to his Excellency's enquiry how I thought his 
request would appeal to you, I said that I did not think it 
probable that at this stage of events you would care to bind 
yourself to any course of action and that I was of opinion 
that you would desire to retain full liberty. 

" Our conversation upon this subject having come to an 
end, I communicated the contents of your telegram of to-day 
to his Excellency, who expressed his best thanks to you." 

And this we are told to accept as coming from a 
man whose Government had planned the whole of 
the terrible business which startled the world at the 
beginning of August. Why, panic is large in every 
paragraph of it; and that is not surprising. The 
German Chancellor had just returned from Potsdam 
where no doubt he learned that M. Sazonof was say- 
ing one thing about Russian mobilization to the Ger- 
man ambassador, while the army was acting in quite 
a contrary manner. We in Britain were busy 
enough on the 29th, and we had a deal less reason, 
on the surface, to prepare for " all emergencies " 
than Russia. The telegram from the Kaiser to the 
Czar which was sent at midnight on the 29th, is 
indicative of the alarming reports received at Berlin. 
The Kaiser said, " If, as appears from your com- 
munication and that of your Government, Russia is 
mobilizing against Austria-Hungary, the role of 
mediator which you entrusted to me ... is jeop- 
ardized. . . . The whole burden of decision now 
rests upon your shoulders." 



GROTESQUE PEACE EFFORTS 265 

r News had reached Berlin that Belgium had issued 
as early as July 24th, a mobilization circular, and an 
undated instruction to Belgian ambassadors which 
contained the information they were to give to the 
chancelleries as to her " strengthened peace footing." 
Small wonder the British ambassador at Brussels 
" seemed somewhat surprised at the speed with which 
we (Belgium) had decided to mobilize our army," 
according to the despatch of the Belgian Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs. Potsdam must have 
realized on the 29th that all the Powers of the 
Entente were well ahead of the game, while Ger- 
many was " pressing the button " at Vienna. The 
Russian ambassador telegraphed to Petersburg that 
" the German ambassador has asked Grey why 
Great Britain was taking military measures on 
land and sea. Grey replied that these measures 
had no aggressive character, but that the situation 
\was such that each Power must be ready." The 
jargon of diplomacy! No Power had the slightest 
wish to be aggressive. Not at all. Millions of men 
were being set in motion and millions of money spent, 
because British interests in Servia were nil; because 
every Power was earnestly seeking peace. Will a 
credulous public go on forever believing that Belgium 
was acting quite alone, entirely on her own behalf, 
when her Foreign Minister sent out his circular on 
July 24th, to the five Powers signatory of the Treaty 
of 1839, " in the event of a war breaking out on her 
frontiers " ? Do people realize that the Belgian 
despatch was sent out on the same day Austria 
handed to Ser\^the famous note^ which began all 

the trouble? Will our European diplomatists, 

" men who have too long played with human lives as 



266 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

pawns in a game of chess," to use the phrase of the 
Times, tell us that the first despatch in the Belgian 
official report, from M. Davignon, was the work of 
an exceedingly gifted prophet? This is what the 
Belgian despatch says : 

/ " In these circumstances I have proposed to the King and 

/ to my colleagues in the Cabinet, who have concurred, to 
give you now exact instructions as to the steps to be taken 
by you if the prospect of a Franco-German War became 

l^ more threatening." 

\ 

This from the Belgian Foreign Minister the day 
before Servia replied to the Austrian note; and two 
days before Sir Edward Grey proposed the Confer- 
ence of the four Powers. It seems incredible. The 
Belgian Government on July 24th anticipated a 
Franco-German war; and began to make prepara- 
tions for it on the very day Russia started to mobi- 
lize, and two days before the first public order to the 
British Fleet was issued. 

If we are to believe all that has been said of the 
highly efficient spy system of the German Govern- 
ment, it needs no stretch of the imagination to 
suspect that by July 29th the German Chancel- 
lor knew pretty well how things were with all 
the Governments of the Entente Powers. There- 
fore, to understand the inwardness of the " infa- 
mous proposal" in despatch No. 85, it is abso- 
lutely necessary to be in possession of at least 
the facts set down above. Besides, the Russian offi- 
cial report tells us that the Russian ambassador at 
London had heard from Sir Edward Grey on July 
27th; that he had told the German ambassador that 



PLAIN SENSE 267 

" if Austria were to begin hostilities In spite of the 
Servian reply she would prove her intention of crush- 
ing Servla. Looked at in this light, the question 
might give rise to a situation which might lead to a 
war in which all the Powers would be Involved." 
The wording of despatch No. 85 leads one to Im- 
agine that the question of Belgian neutrality was 
mentioned for the first time by the German Chancel- 
lor. There is no evidence that the British ambassa- 
dor was Instructed by the Foreign Secretary to ques- 
tion the German Chancellor about his intentions to- 
wards Belgium. It must have been known at our 
Foreign Office that Germany in April, 19 14, had de- 
clared she would respect the Treaty of 1839. It 
was, however, France, not Belgium, that was trou- 
bling the German Chancellor after his return from! 
Potsdam on July 29th. The German Secretary of 
State had told the British ambassador earlier in thej 
day that " he was much troubled by reports of mobi- 
lization In Russia, and of certain military measures, 
which he did not specify, being taken In France." 
The German Chancellor must have known what Rus- 
sian mobilization really meant, and how that affected 
France and Belgium. Anyway, the terms of the 
Franco-Russian Alliance were not hidden from him; 
and as early as the 20th, he must have guessed what 
was In the mind of Franco-Russian circles In Peters- 
burg when according to Reuter's correspondent at 
the state banquet the toasts Implied the support of 
England. The German Chancellor might be as 
wicked a diplomatist as there is In Europe to-day; 
he might have known the terms of the Austrian note; 
he might be the most colossal liar to be found at any 



268 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

embassy; but he was not quite so great a fool as 
those who believe that the whole story of this affair 
is contained in the British White Paper. 

Is it to be imagined that the German military au- 
thorities did not know as much as Mr. Amery did 
when he spoke in the debate in the House of Com- 
mons on July 4th, 191 2? Blinking whenever a fact 
against our diplomacy has to be faced, will not help 
the people of Britain or Europe to root out the awful 
cancer which lies at the base of all the evil system 
of diplomacy. By shutting one's eyes to facts some 
men may do loyal service to a party, or a Govern- 
ment; but the time is come when a higher standard 
of political life is called for. Therefore, in getting 
at the inwardness of the " infamous proposal," we 
must regard it as the desire of a desperate diploma- 
tist, hemmed in, — hoist, if you like, by his own pe- 
tard — to know the worst his Government had to 
cope with. The time had come for him to test the 
British diplomatic position. 

Sir Edward Grey was in possession of all these 
facts when he spoke to the House on July 30th. 
The next day the Prime Minister made a statement 
after business: 

"We have just heard — not from St. Petersburg, but 
from Germany — that Russia has proclaimed a general 
mobilization of her Army and Fleet, and that in consequence 
of this, martial law was to be proclaimed for Germany. 
We understand this to mean that mobilization will follow in 
Germany if the Russian mobilization is general and is pro- 
ceeded with. In the circumstances, I should prefer not to 
answer any questions till Monday next." 

Up went the signboard " Not in the public inter- 
est"; and the representatives of the free and en- 



WHAT IT ALL MEANT 269 

lightened electors were dismissed for three days' rec- 
reation. Representative government ! Presumably 
the war party in the House would have carried the 
day had the Prime Minister given the Commons the 
information then in possession of the Foreign Office; 
but what the country on July 30th would have said if 
that day the whole truth had been told of the agree- 
ment of 1906, when conversations began between 
French and British military and naval experts, is 
another matter. The week-end made all the dif- 
ference in public feeling, and indeed in the feeling 
of Ministers themselves. The casus belli had not 
been determined on July 30th. Suppose the Prime 
Minister had told the House on the 30th that the 
Foreign Secretary had been informed by M. Cam- 
bon, the French ambassador, the day before, that, 
/" He anticipated a demand from Germany that 
France would be neutral while Germany attacked 
Russia. This assurance, France, of course, could 
not give: she was bound to help Russia if Russia 
was attacked." Of course. The jargon of diplo- 
macy translated into plain English meant, France 
through her agreement with Russia must fight when 
trouble arose between Germany and Russia, there- 
fore Belgium must be prepared, for her territory 
would become the battleground of the operations in 
the west; and Britain, because of her secret under- 
standing with France and Belgium, must hasten to 
their assistance. We were, for good or for evil, en- 
gaged in a Continental system. Sir Edward Grey 
had warned the German ambassador on the 29th, 
that he did not wish him to be misled by the friendly 
tone of our conversation into thinking that we should 
stand aside. Then the German ambassador, accord- 



270 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ing to the Foreign Secretary's despatch to Berlin, 
No. 90, said emphatically, that some means must be 
found of preserving the peace of Europe. Rapidly 
the scene was changing from the Danube and the 
Neva to the Meuse and the North Sea. Still the 
actors in the drama talked as if the action of the play 
lay in the east. They were obliged to do so, for any 
indication to the audience that the unities were dis- 
regarded, would have led to the danger of springing 
the whole plot on the audience too soon. 

Germany was in a desperate fix at midnight on the 
29th. At once she began bringing pressure on Aus- 
tria. She has, however, received no thanks for her 
trouble. Indeed, it has been said that she never 
tried to influence Austria. Strange it is how war 
seems to close the gates of simple justice on mankind. 
Why even the British ambassador at Vienna in his 
despatch. No. 95, said: 

" The French ambassador hears from Berlin that the 
German ambassador at Vienna is instructed to speak seriously 
to the Austro-Hungarian Government against acting in a 
manner calculated to provoke a European war. Unfortu- 
nately the German ambassador is himself so identified with 
extreme anti-Russian and anti-Servian feeling prevalent in 
Vienna that he is unlikely to plead the cause of peace with 
entire sincerity." 

We now have proof of this. And it may be 
pointed out how a people may easily be at the mercy 
of the antipathies of their own ambassador. On 
July 29th, the German ambassador at Petersburg 
telegraphed to Berlin that the Vienna Cabinet had 
sent a negative reply to the wish expressed by the 
Russian Government to enter into direct negotiations. 



SAZONOF THE UNHAPPY 271 

Thereupon the German Chancellor sent the follow- 
ing message to Vienna : 

/ ' " Berlin, July 30th, 19 14. 

/ ** The report of Count Pourtales does not harmonize with 

/ the account which your Excellency has given of the attitude 
of the Austro-Hungarian Government. Apparently there 
is a misunderstanding which I beg you to clear up. We 
cannot expect Austria-Hungary to negotiate with Servia, 
with which she is in a state of war. The refusal, however, 
to exchange views with St. Petersburg would be a grave 
mistake. We are indeed ready to fulfil our duty. As an 
ally we must, however, refuse to be drawn into a world 
conflagration through Austria-Hungary not respecting our 
advice. Your Excellency will express this to Count Berch- 

> told with all emphasis, and great seriousness. 

" Bethmann-Hollweg." 

When the contents of this despatch were made 
known the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
told the German ambassador there had indeed been 
a misunderstanding, but that it had been explained 
and the Austrian ambassador at Petersburg had al- 
ready received instructions to begin negotiations with 
M. Sazonof. But notwithstanding diplomatic mis- 
understandings, M. Sazonof would not and could not 
stop mobilizing. He was ready to meet Austria, 
make and re-make formulas, but all these expedients 
carried no conviction at Vienna or Berlin so long as 
Russian mobilization was continued. Poor M. 
Sazonof! he was not in the position of our Foreign 
Secretary, who was regarded by Lord Haldane as 
the " Commander of the Forces." All would de- 
pend on Russia and all did depend on Russia. The 
German Secretary of State told our ambassador at 
Berlin to impress on Sir Edward Grey the difficulty 



272 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

of Germany's position in view of Russian mobiliza- 
tion and the military measures which he heard were 
being taken in France, Only officers on leave had 
been recalled ; nothing special done in the way of mili- 
tary preparations. But, " something would have 
soon to be done for it might be too late, and when 
they mobilized they would have to mobilize on three 
sides. He regretted this, as he knew France did not 
desire war, but it would be a military necessity." 
Perhaps the Secretary of State thought it was time 
to take his finger off the button and place it on the 
trigger. At the same time, he told the British am- 
bassador that the warning Sir Edward Grey had 
given the German ambassador at London, as to 
Britain's neutrality, had not reached the German 
Chancellor until after the " infamous proposal " was 
made. 

" His Excellency added that telegram received from 
Prince Lichnowsky last night contains matter which he had 
heard with regret, but not exactly with surprise, and at all 
events he thoroughly appreciated the frankness and loyalty 
with which you had spoken. He also told me that this 
telegram had only reached Berlin very late last night; had 
it been received earlier Chancellor would, of course, not 
have spoken to me in the way he had done." 

Why our Foreign Secretary should telegraph on 
the 29th to our ambassador at Paris that he " was 
about to warn Prince Lichnowsky " that Germany 
must not count on Britain standing aside, before he 
telegraphed the same grave information to our am- 
bassador at Berlin, is a mystery. 

It is worth while looking a little closer at this 
phase of diplomatic negotiations because it touches 



A FRANK ANALYSIS 273 

the second point In the White Paper which has raised 
so much uneasiness in the minds of some of the most 
intelligent men in Britain. Most fair-minded people 
now admit that there-would have been no war if the 
British Government had boldly announced on receipt 
of Sir^Geor_ge_£iichana.n's_d£spatGh on T uly 24-th that 
the Triple Entente would proclaim their solidanty. 
Now that the truth is leaking out and intelligent peo- 
ple have had time to reflect, this is found to be the 
first point in the White Paper that is the cause of 
widespread regret. The " warning " is the second 
point. Analyzed chronologically, it seems to be a 
thoroughly discreditable affair. 

On the morning of Wednesday, July 29th, Sir Ed- 
ward Grey told M. Paul Cambon (see despatch No. 
87, British White Paper, to Sir Francis Bertie) that 
he meant to tell the German ambassador that day 
that he must not be misled from the friendly tone of 
their conversation that Britain would stand aside. 

In the next despatch, No. 88, July 29th, from Sir 
Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, there is not one 
word about warning the German ambassador. 

In despatch No. 89, Sir Edward Grey told Sir E. 
Goschen that he saw the German ambassador that 
afternoon, July 29th, and told him not to be misled 
by the friendly tone of their conversation Into think- 
ing that Britain would stand aside. 

Despatch No. 90 proves Sir Edward Grey saw the 
German ambassador twice on July 29th. 

It Is evident that Sir Edward Grey did not warn 
the German ambassador when he saw him that 
morning. It is also evident that Sir Edward Grey 
notified M. Paul Cambon and the British ambassa- 
dor at Paris that he was about to warn the German 



274 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ambassador that Britain would not stand aside, sev- 
eral hours before he gave the warning to Prince 
Lichnowsky. 

There is no reference at all In M. Paul Cambon's 
despatch of July 29th, No. 98 In the French Yellow 
Book, to Sir Edward Grey's warning. Strangely 
enough, the French ambassador, after receiving the 
news from Sir Edward Grey of the warning to be 
given to the German ambassador, told the French 
Government: 

" My German colleague having asked Sir Edward Grey 
what the intentions of the British Government were, the 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs replied that he had 
nothing to state for the present. Sir Edward Grey did not 
disguise the fact that he found the situation very grave 
and that he had little hope of a peaceful solution." 

Why there should be no reference to the warning 
in despatch No. 98, in the French Yellow Book, 
(the only despatch sent by the French ambassa- 
dor at London to his Government on July 29) is as 
difficult to understand as the statement attributed to 
Sir Edward Grey which Is quoted above. The news 
of the warning was, however, known in Berlin on the 
afternoon of July 29th. In despatch No. 92 In the 
French Yellow Book, from M. Jules Cambon, the 
French ambassador at Berlin, we learn: 

"The attitude of the Chancellor (German) is very 
probably the result of the last interview of Sir Edward Grey 
with Prince Lichnowsky. Up to quite the last days they 
flattered them.selves here (Berlin) that England would re- 
main out of the question, and the impression produced on 
the German Government and on the financiers and business 
men by her attitude is profound." 



A CURIOUS PROCEEDING 275 

This Is illuminating. Indeed it explains a great 
deal which seemed dark and difficult in the early days 
of August. It was then thought by a certain school 
of Jingo journalists that the threat or warning of Sir 
Edward Grey, on July 29th, was the influence which 
forced the German Chancellor to bring pressure to 
bear on Austria to obtain direct conversations with 
Russia. But the German Chancellor knew nothing 
about the threat or warning when he saw Sir Edward 
Goschen on the afternoon of July 29th. M. Jules 
Cambon was evidently misled when he sent his des- 
patch, for the Berlin Foreign Office knew nothing 
then about " the result of the last interview of Sir 
Edward Grey with Prince Lichnowsky." Still, M. 
Cambon might have been in possession of the infor- 
mation which was to be given to Prince Lichnowsky, 
for it had been given to his brother in London that 
morning. 

It is quite clear that neither Sir Edward Goschen 
nor the German Chancellor knew anything about the 
warning when they had their interview on the after- 
noon of July 29th. There is no evidence at all that 
Sir E. Goschen received despatch No. 89, In which 
Sir Edward Grey told him that he had warned the 
German ambassador. It was not telegraphed. If 
he had received it, he would have known what the 
German Secretary of State was referring to on July 
30th when he was told that the telegram received 
from Prince Lichnowsky did not reach Berlin until 
very late on the night of July 29th. Sir Edward 
Goschen was so much in the dark about this matter 
that Sir Edward Grey had to telegraph on July 30th 
and tell him that he (Sir Edward Grey) had warned 
Prince Lichnowsky. 



276 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

The whole of the basis Mr. Asquith took for his 
case on August 6th was despatch No. 85, British 
White Paper, from Sir Edward Goschen to Sir Ed- 
ward Grey; this contained the " infamous proposal." 
No notice at all was ever taken of despatch No. 98 
from Sir Edward Goschen to Sir Edward Grey. It 
was not " infamous " to let the French ambassador at 
London and the British ambassador at Paris know 
on July 29th that Sir Edward Grey was about to warn 
Prince Lichnowsky that Britain would not stand 
aside; it was not " infamous " to let the British am- 
bassador at Berlin meet the German Chancellor on 
the afternoon of July 29th, ignorant that Prince Lich- 
nowsky was about to be warned, — though the French 
ambassador at Berlin seemed at that time to be pretty 
fully acquainted with the news of the warning; it was 
not " infamous " that the British ambassador at 
Berlin should not know what the German Secretary 
of State was referring to on July 30th when he told 
Sir Edward Goschen : 

" That telegram received from Prince Lichnowsky . . . 
had only reached Berlin very late last night; had it been 
received earlier Chancellor (German) would, of course, not 
have spoken to me in way he had done." 

So the infamous proposal would not have been 
made had Sir Edward Grey dealt with the Berlin 
Foreign Office and the German ambassador at Lon- 
don with the ordinary courtesy that one business man 
extends to another. Yet it will be seen that Sir Ed- 
ward Grey in despatch No. loi to Sir Edward 
Goschen, July 30th, does not refer at all to despatch 
No. 98, though after he had sent No. loi he had to 
telegraph to Sir Edward Goschen, in No. 102, that 
he had warned Prince Lichnowsky. 



WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 277 

Is it any wonder that intelligent, fair-minded peo- 
Iple now smile when the British White Paper is re- 
Iferred to, and shake their heads sorrowfully when 
Ithe uninitiated talk about the " infamous proposal "? 
Why neither Sir Edward Grey nor Mr. Asquith has 
ever referred to despatch No. 98 is one of the 
first-class mysteries of this terrible business. But 
this mystery may help to teach Members of Par- 
liament a lesson in diplomatic methods. In future 
they may wish to see papers giving a full statement 
of the case in good and ample time to scrutinize 
closely what diplomatists have been doing and say- 
ing. If, on Friday, July 31st, the House of Com- 
mons had been in possession of the British White 
Paper, and all the despatches up to midnight, July 
30th, so that the members could have studied it 
closely over the week-end, there might have been a 
very different set of circumstances to record of the 
first week of August, even though we were entangled 
with France and Russia. 

But Prince Lichnowsky was not the only person 
not warned in time in that dreadful last week of 
July. The members of the British House of Com- 
mons were not warned. During that week our al- 
lies seemed to have no doubt that the peace of Eu- 
rope lay in the hands of Great Britain; and Russia 
and France constantly warned Sir Edward Grey 
of the fact. The Foreign Secretary knew that the 
President of France had told our ambassador at 
Paris on July 30th, that he was convinced that peace 
between the Powers was in the hands of Great Brit- 
ain. He said: 

" If His Majesty's Government announced that England 
would come to the aid of France in the event of a conflict 



278 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

between France and Germany as a result of the present 
differences between Austria and Servia, there would be no 
war, for Germany would at once modify her attitude." 

The Russian ambassador at Paris told the Presi- 
dent of the French Council on the night of July 30th 
that war was imminent and that: 

" She (Russia) counts on the help of France as an ally, 
and that she considers it desirable that England should join 
Russia and France without loss of time. France is resolved 
to fulfil all the obligations of her alliance." 

From the beginning neither Russia nor France 
ceased trying to get the British Foreign Secretary 
to declare openly what Britain would do. Procrasti- 
nation was the offspring of secrecy, and the " Com- 
mander of the Forces " was about as free to move 
as Laocoon. 

A leader in the Times on July 30th, said: 

" The instinct of self-preservation, which is the strongest 
factor in national life, therefore compels us — if the efforts 
of our Government to keep the peace should fail — to be 
ready to strike with all our force for our own safety and for 
that of our friends." 

At last M. Cambon had to resort to some com- 
pulsion, as the supplications of neither Russia nor 
France were of complete avail; and he on the 30th 
wrote reminding Sir Edward Grey of the secret en- 
gagement entered into in January, 1906, and en- 
closed copies of the letters they had exchanged in 
November, 191 2. It Is only necessary now to look 
at the letter from M. Cambon : 



SECRET HISTORY EMERGING 279 

" French Embassy, London. 

"November 23rd, 1912. 
"Dear Sir Edward: 

"You reminded me in your letter of yesterday, 22nd 
November, that during the last few years the military and 
naval authorities of France and Great Britain had consulted 
vv^ith each other from time to time; that it had always been 
understood that these consultations should not restrict the 
liberty of either Government to decide in the future whether 
they should lend each other the support of their armed 
forces; that, on either side, these consultations between ex- 
perts were not and should not be considered as engagements 
binding our Governments to take action in certain eventuali- 
ties; that, however, I had remarked to you that, if one or 
other of the two Governments had grave reasons to fear 
an unprovoked attack on the part of a third Power, it would 
become essential to know whether it could count on the 
armed support of the other. 

" Your letter answers that point, and I am authorized 
to state that, in the event of one of our two Governments 
having grave reasons to fear either an attack from a third 
Power, or some event threatening the general peace, that 
Government would immediately examine with the other the 
question whether both Governments should act together in 
order to prevent aggression or preserve peace. If so, the 
two Governments would deliberate as to the measures which 
they would be prepared to take in common ; if those measures 
involved action, the two Governments would take into im- 
mediate consideration the plans of their general staffs and 
would then decide as to the effect to be given to those plans. 

" Yours, etc., 
" Paul Cambon." 

With the letters the French ambassador enclosed 
a' communication he had received from the French 
Minister for Foreign Affairs, which said that the 



28o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

German patrols had twice penetrated French terri- 
tory, "yesterday (Friday)," which was not correct, 
for the communication was dated July 31st, and the 
31st was Friday. According to despatch No. 106 
in the French Yellow Book German patrols pene- 
trated French territory on Wednesday, July 29th, 
but not until August 2nd did M. Viviani think it 
worth while notifying Berlin of the violation of the 
French frontier by German troops. Then he in- 
formed the French ambassador in despatch No. 139 
that " German troops having to-day violated the 
eastern frontier at several points, I request you im- 
mediately to protest in writing to the German Gov- 
ernment." To the request of M. Cambon the For- 
eign Secretary replied that the Cabinet would meet 
in the morning (Friday) and that he would "see 
him again to-morrow afternoon." In Sir Edward 
Grey's despatch to the British ambassador at Paris, 
he states that M. Cambon had reminded him of the 
letters of November, 19 12, and that the French am- 
bassador had also given him a copy of the communi- 
cation from the French Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs. But as the communication is dated " Paris, 
July 31st, 1 9 14," and the British despatch to Paris, 
No. 105, is dated July 30th, it is a little difficult to 
understand how M. Cambon and Sir Edward Grey 
could have been in possession of a document on the 
30th, which did not leave Paris until the 31st. This 
communication is a specimen of how diplomatists 
make war. The dates are all wrong, so wrong in- 
deed that the Foreign Office in issuing the second edi- 
tion of the White Paper cut out the dates and day, 
Friday. Compare the communication (Enclosure 3 
In No. 105, British White Paper) with No. 106 in 



STRUGGLING IN THE NET 281 

the French Yellow Book and judge to what extent 
the collaboration of M. Paul Cambon impressed the 
British Foreign Office. The phrase " As you see, 
Germany has done it," is not to be found in the de- 
spatch from M. Viviani. But more remarkable 
things than that happen in diplomatic circles; so, 
like many other curious slips in the despatching busi- 
ness, we may leave the dates for future Macaulays 
and Guizots to set straight. 

Friday, July 31st, was perhaps the blackest Friday 
the world has ever known. Millionaires came from 
the city to their homes in the west end, trembling 
with anxiety, wondering what their financial position 
would be within a week. Prices of foodstuffs went 
up with a bound. All would depend on Russia I 
On Friday the whisper was " All will depend on Ger- 
many ! " From Berlin came the following despatch: 

No. 108. 

Sir E. Goschen to Sir Edward Grey. 

(Telegraphic) (Received July 31st.) 

"Berlin, July 31st, 1914. 
" Chancellor informs me that his efforts to preach peace 
and moderation at Vienna have been seriously handicapped 
by the Russian mobilization against Austria. He has done 
everything possible to attain his object at Vienna, perhaps 
even rather more than was altogether palatable at the Ball- 
platz. He could not, however, leave his country defence- 
less while time was being utilized by other Powers; and if, 
as he learns is the case, military measures are now being 
taken by Russia against Germany also, it would be im- 
possible for him to remain quiet. He wished to tell me that 
it was quite possible that in a very short time, to-day per- 
haps, the German Government would take some very serious 
step; he was, in fact, just on the point of going to have an 
audience with the Emperor. His Excellency added that the 




282 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

news of the active preparations on the Russo-German fron- 
tier had reached him just when the Czar had appealed to the 
Emperor, in the name of their old friendship, to mediate at 
Vienna, and when the Emperor was actually conforming to 
that request." 

To the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, Sir 
Edward Grey telegraphed that he did not see how j 
Russia could be urged to suspend military prepara-^ 
tions unless some limit were put by Austria to the 
advance of her troops into Servia. Then to f'Ber'^ 
iln he sent a message saying Austria has declared 
her willingness to respect Servian sovereignty and the 
integrity of Servian territory; and that while Ger- 
many sounded Vienna, and Britain sounded Peters- 
burg, all Powers would suspend further military op- 
erations or preparations. At the same time he 
warned the German ambassador that if France be- 
came Involved, Britain would be drawn in. Soon, 
however, news was received in Berlin that the whple_ 
Russian army and fleet were being mobilized, and 
Germany then announced that she must certainly pre- 
pare for all emergencies. Kriegsgefahr was Im- 
mediately proclaimed. The Foreign Secretary had 
failed utterly to influence Russia's military prepara- 
tions. 

Then his greater struggle with his Continental 
friends began. Both Russia and France pressed 
him again and again to declare that Britain would 
support them. In vain he strove to put France 
off by saying British treaties and obligations were 
not yet Involved. The French ambassador " urged 
His Majesty's Government to reconsider this de- 
cision." From Paris came a message saying the 
German Government had sent an ultimatum to the 



M. CAMBON AS NEMESIS 283 f 

Russian Government to demobilize their forces, and ^ 

that a reply must be made by Russia within twelve ^ 

hours; failing that, the German Government would t 

consider " it necessary to order the total mobilization J 

of the German army on the Russian and French ^ 

frontiers." The French Minister for Foreign Af- l^ 

fairs asked what the attitude of England would be, j- 

for the German ambassador at Paris was to call at -^ - 

one o'clock the next day (Saturday) to know what O «■ ^ 

the French Government would do in the circum- 5 v 

stances. M. Cambon still pursued the Foreign Sec-^- '^ i 

retary; he told him if Britain would only declare -^ ^ 

definitely on the side of Russia and France it would j f J 
decide tlie German attitude in favour of peace. The j ^ 
British Cabinet had, however, decided " not to give 
any pledge at the present time." Then in despatch 
No. 119 we read: 

" Though we should have to put our policy before Parlia- 
ment, we could not pledge Parliament in advance. Up to 
the present moment, we did not feel, and public opinion did 
not feel, that any treaties or obligations of this country were 
involved. Further developments might alter this situation 
and cause the Government and Parliament to take the view 
that intervention was justified. The preservation of the 
neutrality of Belgium might be, I would not say a decisive, 
but an important factor, in determining our attitude. 
Whether we proposed to Parliament to intervene or not to 
intervene in a war. Parliament would wish to know how 
we stood with regard to the neutrality of Belgium, and it 
might be that I should ask both France and Germany 
whether each was prepared to undertake an engagement 
that she would not be the first to violate the neutrality of 
Belgium. 

" M. Cambon repeated his question whether we would 
help France if Germany made an attack on her. I said that 



284 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

I could only adhere to the answer that, as far as things had 
gone at present, we could not take any engagement. M. 
Cambon urged that Germany had from the beginning re- 
jected proposals that might have made for peace. It could 
not be to England's interest that France should be crushed 
by Germany. We should then be in a very diminished posi- 
tion with regard to Germany. In 1870 we had made a 
great mistake in allowing an enormous increase in German 
strength, and we should now be repeating this mistake. 
He asked me whether I could not submit his question to the 
Cabinet again. I said that the Cabinet would certainly be 
summoned as soon as there was some new development, but 
at the present moment the only answer I could give was that 
we could not undertake any definite engagement." 

Neutrality of Belgium! Mr. Amery had told 
Parliament, two years before Sir Edward Grey sent 
his message to France and Germany, asking the 
Governments if they would respect the Treaty of 
1839, that: 

" Germany has added 80,000 men to her army for the 
express purpose of strengthening the force that is to march 
through Belgium to crush the French left. It is upon our 
Expeditionary Force that the brunt of that march would 
fall. . . . Our opponents (the Germans) will have the 
choice of two objectives. They can attempt either to inter- 
fere with the despatch of the Expeditionary Force or to 
cover an invasion, a counterstroke intended either to bring 
us to our knees or at any rate to prevent a considerable part 
of the Expeditionary Force from going, and so clear the 
field for the German advance through Flanders." 

[ Neutrality of Belgium! M. Davlgnon In his de- 
spatch of July 24th, showed that his precautions 
were at least a week ahead of those of Sir Edward 
Grey. M. Cambon must have been amazed at the 



" NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM " 285 

attitude of the Foreign Secretary and the Cabinet. 
And what must M. Davlgnon have thought? No 
wonder those brave fellows at Liege could not un- 
derstand why they w-ere not supported by the French 
and English. Many men in Prance and Belgium 
must have wondered what had happened to the plans v,^ 
of the General Staffs. Friday, July 31st, was a I 
black one for many people in London, but to none so !i 
black as It was to M. Cambon. 

In Russia the people were in high spirits on that 
day. The Times correspondent told us what took 
place In Petersburg: 

"About 1^.30 a concourse numbering 50,000 surrounded 
the British Embassy. ' God save the King ' alternated 
* Bozhe Tzara Khranie,' and even ' Rule Britannia.' The 
procession also visited the French Embassy. Truth com- 
pels me to say that Russians, high and low, are waiting 
with the intensest anxiety to learn Great Britain's decision. 
The articles in the Times have done much to inspire hope, 
but if, contrary to reasonable expectation, the British Parlia- 
ment insists on neutrality, there will be a terrible revulsion 
of feeling here." 

Germany's reply to the question of the neutrality 
of Belgium was not satisfactory; the Secretary of 
State made a note of it, but was doubtful whether 
the German Government would return any answer 
at all. Hostile acts had already been committed by 
Belgium, so our ambassador was informed. France, 
of course, sent a satisfactory reply; the President of 
the Republic had spoken of it to the King of the 
Belgians. The first despatch In the White Paper 
addressed to the British ambassador at Brussels is 
dated July 31st, but M. Davlgnon in the Belgian 
official report states that, " The British Minister 



286 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

asked to see me on urgent business, and made the 
following communication which he had hoped for 
some days to be able to present to me," — and then 
follows the question of Belgian neutrality. So the 
urgent business had been delayed for some days, 
though the British Minister saw the Belgian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs on the very day he received in- 
structions from London to put the question in Brus- 
sels about the neutrality of Belgium ! 

The diplomatic correspondence in the Belgian 
White Paper is unique; it is too naive, too premoni- 
tory, for acceptance without question. According 
to the undated enclosure in the note of July 24th, to 
ambassadors, we are informed that: 

/ " All necessary steps to ensure respect of Belgian neu- 

/ trality have nevertheless been taken by the Government. 

/ The Belgian army has been mobilized and is taking up such 

''•yU I strategic positions as have been chosen to secure the defence 

y of the country and the respect of its neutrality. The forts 

\ of Antwerp and on the Meuse have been put in a state of 

Vpfence." 

This was done In prospect of a Franco-German 
war. Then Belgium must have been convinced that 
she had no reason at all to guard her French fron- 
tier; all her preparations were made against Ger- 
many. The area to be protected was that through 
which the Meuse ran: Liege, Namur, and Dinant. 
But Belgium less than four months before, had re- 
ceived specific declarations from Germany that she 
would respect the neutrality and independence of Bel- 
gium. Why then should Belgium, before Servia re- 
plied to the" Austi-ian note, leave the French frontier 
open, and concentrate all her military strength on 



THE BLOW FALLS 287 

the Meuse and at Antwerp ? What were the plans 
of the General Staffs? The British Secretary of 
State for War was asked in the House of Commons, 
in 1912, for an "explicit statement of the relative 
forces which would take the field in France and Bel- 
gium at the outbreak of the conflict " with Germany. "' r>) 
On July 3 1 si;, the Belgian Minister for War issued ' 
the mobilization order to carry out the operations 
that were completed before the 24th. , , 

On that Friday night it was no use discussing any- 
thing in Berlin but the demobilization of the Rus- 
sian forces ; nothing but demobihzation would satisfy 
the German Government. It was demanded " in 
order to pre\^ent Russia from saying all her mobiliza- 
tion was only directed against Austria." The Ger- 
man Secretary of State told the British ambassador 
" that both the Emperor William, at the request of 
the Emperor of Russia, and the German Foreign 
Office had even up till last night been urging Austria 
to show willingness to continue discussions — and 
telegraphic and telephonic communications from 
Vienna had been of a promising nature — but Rus- 
sia's mobilization had spoilt ^everything.'' The 
Czar's telegram of the 31st, to the Kaiser, murdered 
peace. He said: 

" It is technically im£ossibk to discontinue our jiilitary 
operations which are rendered necessary by Austria's 
mobilization. We are far from wishing for war, and so 
long as the negotiations with Austria regarding Servia con- 
tinue, my troops will not undertake provocative action. I 
give you my word upon it." 

To this the German Emperor replied: 

*' In answer to your appeal to my friendship and your 



288 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

prayer for my help I undertook mediatory action between 
' the Austro-Hungarian Government and yours. While this 
action was in progress your troops were mobilized against 
my ally Austria-Hungary, in consequence of which, as I 
have already informed you, my mediation was rendered 
illusory. Nevertheless, I have continued it. Now, how- 
ever, I receive trustworthy news of your serious preparations 
for war, even on my eastern frontier. The responsibility 
for the safety of my kingdom compels me to take definite 
counter measures. The efforts to maintain the peace of 
the world have now reached their utmost possible limit. It 
will not be I who am responsible for the calamity which 
threatens the whole civilized world. Even at this moment 
it lies in your power to avert it. Nobody threatens the 
honour and power of Russia, which could well have waited 
for the result of my mediation." 

On the very day these telegrams passed, the Rus- 
sian Government issued the following formula: 

" If Austria will agree to check the advance of her troops 
on Servian territory; if, recognizing that the dispute between 
Austria and Servia has assumed a character of European 
interest, she will allow the great Powers to look into the 
matter and determine whether Servia could satisfy the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian Government without impairing her rights as 
a sovereign State or her independence, Russia will under- 
take to maintain her waiting attitude." 

Austria conceded everything to Russian demands, 
but it was technically impossible to discontinue Rus- 
sian military preparations, though M. Sazonof 
pledged Russia to maintain her waiting attitude. 
Waiting to spring! The position of the Russian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs was very much like 
that of Sir Edward Grey: both were sincere in their 
efforts to stop a European conflagration, but the mili- 



A PATHETIC RECORD 289 

tary and naval authorities in their countries were 
dead against them. As Mr. Churchill said, " the 
whole generation of men went mad," and out of the 
chaotic jargon of diplomacy nothing but war could 
come. Forty-four years of secret traffickings had 
raised a Frankenstein's monster and the " men who 
had too long played with human lives " were incom- 
petent to deal with the consequences of their work. 
In no official record of diplomatic correspondence 
is there to be found a despatch containing so much 
that is pathetic as that in the British White Paper, 
No. 123. It reveals a man in desperation at the 
knees of a symbol powerless to grant hope or mercy. 
Let it be clearly understood that Austria had on the 
31st, agreed to the formula submitted by Russia, 
and that Sir Edward Grey knew it. He also knew 
that Russia never once gave the slightest heed to the 
protests made by the German Foreign Office or by 
the Kaiser against Russian mobilization. He knew 
that the " infamous proposal " in despatch No. 85 
would not have been made if the warning which he 
gave Prince Lichnowsky, in London, had been known 
in Berlin on the 29th, as early as it was known in 
Paris. Despatch No. 123 is as follows: 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen 

" Foreign Office, August ist, 1914. 
"Sir: 

" I told the German ambassador to-day that the reply of 
the German Government with regard to the neutrality of 
Belgium was a matter of very great regret, because the 
neutrality of Belgium affected feeling in this country. If 
Germany could see her way to give the same assurance as 
that which had been given by France it would materially 
contribute to relieve anxiety and tension here. On the other 



290 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

hand, if there were a violation of the neutrality of Belgium 
by one combatant while the other respected it, it would be 
extremely difficult to restrain public feeling in this country. 
I said that we had been discussing this question at a Cabinet 
meeting, and as I was authorized to tell him this, I gave him 
a memorandum of it. 

" He asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise not 
to violate Belgian neutrality we would engage to remain 
neutral. 

" I replied that I could not say that; our hands were still 
free, and we were considering what our attitude should be. 
All I could say was that our attitude would be determined 
largely by public opinion here, and that the neutrality of 
Belgium would appeal very strongly to public opinion here. 
I did not think that I could give a promise of neutrality on 
that condition alone. 

" The ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not 
formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. 
He even suggested that the integrity of France and her 
colonies might be guaranteed. 

" I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any 
promise to remain neutral on similar terms, and I could 
only say that we must keep our hands free. 

" I am, etc., 

" E. Grey." 

Now, was the Foreign Secretary in a position to 
deal with the German ambassador? Most certainly 
not. In the first place Sir Edward Grey's hands 
were not free; he was bound hand and foot by the 
plans of the French and British General Staffs, and 
the conversations entered into in January, 1906. In 
the second place public opinion was not In any way 
ripe for war; every Liberal, Radical, and Socialist 
paper In the kingdom was dead against our participa- 
tion In a European war. There was no Jingo feel- 
ing worth speaking of on July 31st. Besides, the 



HELPLESSNESS 291 

Cabinet was not anything like agreed : It was then In 
search of a casus belli. Then, in the third place, Sir 
Edward Grey and the Cabinet could not have done 
anything else but remain neutral, if Germany had 
given her pledge to respect the neutrality of Bel- 
gium; presuming, of course, the neutrality of Bel- 
gium were the determining question. If the neu- 
trality of Belgium had been the dominant matter, we 
should have been obliged to abstain altogether if 
Germany had given the pledge, and tals:e no action 
until the neutrality of Belgium were violated. Sir 
Edward Grey was as powerless to remain neutral 
as Prometheus to chase the eagle from his vitals. 

What hope was there for peace after the interview 
recorded In despatch No. 123 ? What was the effect 
at the German Foreign Office when they heard from 
Prince Lichnowsky the result of his interview with 
Sir Edward Grey? Still, our Foreign Secretary 
made on August ist, another attempt to influence 
Russia. He sent to the British ambassador at Pet- 
ersburg Instructions that he " should inform Minister 
for Foreign Affairs and say that if, in the considera- 
tion of the acceptance of mediation by Austria, Rus- 
sia can agree to stop mobilization, it appears still to 
be possible to preserve peace. Presumably the mat- 
ter should be discussed with German Government, 
also by Russian Government." The last message 
from the British ambassador at Petersburg was sent 
on August 1st, reached London August 2nd, and its 
contents referred to the affairs of July 31st. The 
only bit of news worth mentioning in that long rig- 
marole Is, " The Emperor of Russia read his tele- 
gram to the German Emperor, to the German am- 
bassador at the audience given to His Excellency yes- 



292 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

terday. No progress whatever was made." Of 
course not. The only way progress towards peace 
could be made was by demobilizing, and that Russia 
would not do. No answer came from Petersburg 
to Sir Edward Grey's suggestion of August ist. 
But from Berlin came very serious news. The Brit- 
ish ambassador telegraphed: 

" Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said that Aus- 
tria's readiness to discuss was the result of German influence 
at Vienna, and, had not Russia mobilized against Germany, 
all would have been well. But Russia by abstaining from 
answering Germany's demand that she should demobilize, 
had caused Germany to mobilize also. Russia had said that 
her mobilization did not necessarily imply war, and that 
she could perfectly well remain mobilized for months with- 
out making war. This was not the case with Germany. 
She had the speed and Russia had the numbers, and the 
safety of the German Empire forbade that Germany should 
allow Russia time to bring up masses of troops from all parts 
of her wide dominions. The situation now was that, 
though the Imperial Government had allowed her several 
hours beyond the specified time, Russia had sent no answer. 
Germany had therefore ordered mobilization, and the Ger- 
man representative at St. Petersburg had been instructed 
within a certain time to inform the Russian Government 
that the Imperial Government must regard their refusal to 
answer as creating a state of war." 

The ambassadors at Petersburg and Vienna were 
perhaps too busy doubting one another's sincerity 
to spend much time in working for peace. In those 
capitals the band-of-hope spirit seems not to have 
pervaded the chancelleries. In London, on Satur- 
day, August 1st, the situation was extremely grave. 
Late that night Lord Lansdowne, Sir Edward Car- 
son, and Mr. Bonar Law hastened to the centre of the 



THE DRUM-BEAT 293 

diplomatic world. Germany had issued orders for 
the general mobilization of her army and navy; the 
next day, the Sabbath, to be the first day. Later it 
was reported that th^ Russians had blown up a rail- 
way bridge between Szezakowa and Granitza. The 
despatching business was fast drawing to a close, 
and the period of deeds was taking the place of 
words, words, words. And the war-weary world 
rose again, like the phoenix, from the ashes of a mil- 
lion battlefields, to give her best blood and bone to 
the insatiable god of war. Through the long Sab- 
bath, all over the kingdom, thousands of feet 
tramped Channel-wards; regiment after regiment 
with full kit wound through London streets as the 
bells from tower and steeple called the folk to 
prayer. Ministers went to a Cabinet meeting, there 
to yield up to the French ambassador some token of 
Britain's friendship. 

No. 148. 
(Telegraphic.) 

" Foreign Office, August 2nd, 1914. 

" After the Cabinet this morning I gave M. Cambon the 
following memorandum: 

" * I am authorized to give an assurance that, if the Ger- 
man fleet comes into the Channel or through the North Sea 
to undertake hostile operations against French coast or 
shipping, the British fleet will give all the protection in its 
power.' 

" ' This assurance is of course subject to the policy of His 
Majesty's Government receiving the support of Parliament, 
and must not be taken as binding His Majesty's Government 
to take any action until the above contingency of action by 
the German fleet takes place.' " 

Having been treated to so many " not binding " 



294 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

agreements the French ambassador must have won- 
dered how they all stuck together. It was, however, 
a fairly safe pledge to give; for the Cabinet knew 
pretty nearly where the German fleet then was, and 
just about how much chance it had of interfering 
with the passage of the Expeditionary Force across 
the Channel. But there are two more paragraphs: 

" I pointed out that we had very large questions and most 
difficult issues to consider, and that Government felt that 
they could not bind themselves to declare war upon Ger- 
many necessarily if war broke out between France and Ger- 
many to-morrow, but it was essential to the French Govern- 
ment, whose fleet had long been concentrated in the 
Mediterannean, to know how to make their dispositions 
with their north coast entirely undefended. We therefore 
thought it necessary to give them this assurance. It did not 
bind us to go to war with Germany unless the German fleet 
took the action indicated, but it did give a security to France 
that would enable her to settle the disposition of her own 
Mediterranean fleet. 

" M. Cambon asked me about the violation of Luxem- 
bourg. I told him the doctrine laid down by Lord Derby 
and Lord Clarendon in 1867. He asked me what we 
should say about the violation of the neutrality of Belgium. 
I said that was a much more important matter; we were 
considering what statement we should make in Parliament 
to-morrow — in effect, whether we should declare violation 
of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli. I told him what 
had been said to the German ambassador on this point." 

It Is evident the Cabinet was not agreed about 
Belgium two days after the Foreign Secretary had 
asked the Belgian Government whether they would 
maintain to the utmost of their power their neutral- 
ity. Sir Edward Grey must have found himself in a 
very difficult position with the Cabinet on August 



THE COUNTRY IN IGNORANCE 295 

2nd. What Continental Governments thought of 
the situation can be guessed; and our impatient 
friends in Russia, and France, and Belgium, were no 
doubt amazed at the delay of the British Cabinet in 
coming to the support of the military and naval ex- 
perts. Some members of the Cabinet learned more 
that Sunday about secret diplomacy and its conse- 
quences than they will ever wish to know again in 
their political lives. Perhaps the replies of the 
Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to ques- 
tions put in the House on several occasions as to our 
military obligations came like ghosts into the council 
room. But — 

" Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, 
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man." 

In Whitehall as Ministers passed along to Down- 
ing Street to attend the second Cabinet meeting, a 
crowd of people parted to let a regiment march 
through. Save for a short cheer from a few young 
men, the troops filed along an avenue of silent, re- 
spectful friends. Two Ministers strode round the 
corner into Downing Street unnoticed by the crowd; 
they were going to a meeting where a casus belli was 
to be found. The troops tramped on past the War 
Office and the Admiralty, but no one knew their desti- 
nation. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FOREIGN SECRETARY'S STATEMENT 

" If generous honesty, valour, and plain dealing be the 
cognizance of thy family, or characteristic of the country, 
hold fast such inclinations sucked in with thy first breath, 
and which lay in the cradle with thee. Fall not into 
transforming degenerations, which under the old name 
create a new nation." 

— Sir Thomas Browne. 

Going to the House of Commons on Monday, 
August 3rd, a member might have been forgiven for 
loitering a little while in the halls of Westminster 
and St. Stephen. What scenes in our history came 
thronging to the mind! What an enacting and an- 
nulling and amending of statutes ! What change 
and decay of customs and of men! What begin- 
nings and endings of wars ! What speeches on the 
benefits the wars would bring to the people I Mem- 
ories of North and Burke rising to mock one, and 
abruptly turn one's thoughts to the last dispute be- 
tween us and folk of our own stock. Loitering there 
the mind became so full that time lost Its significance ; 
and memory so crowded the halls with the ghosts 
of our national drama that never ends, that Crom- 
well seemed to pass under the arch out into the 
Palace Yard. 

The House was full long before Mr. Speaker ap- 
peared with mace and chaplain. Never so many 
came to prayers before. How speedily the prelimi- 

296 



ANXIETY 297 

naries were dealt with after the service. The haste 
to get to war eclipsed anything ever done to make 
for peace and happiness. Earlier in the forenoon 
the whisper, " Are we in it? " passed from member 
to member in the lobby. The Foreign Secretary had 
not been speaking for more than five minutes when 
the question was approached. Those who had re- 
lied on the answers of the Prime Minister and Sir 
Edward Grey to the many questions put in time past 
regarding secret understandings with France, did not 
lose hope until they heard the following : 

" I come first, now, to the question of British obligations. 
I have assured the House — and the Prime Minister has 
assured the House more than once — that if any crisis such 
as this arose, we should come before the House of Commons 
and be able to say to the House that it was free to decide 
what the British attitude should be, that we would have no 
secret engagement which we should spring upon the House, 
and tell the House that, because we had entered into that 
engagement, there was an obligation of honour upon this 
country. I will deal with that point to clear the ground 
first." 

These were strange words to come from a Foreign 
Secretary at such a time. Members had assembled 
to hear a complete statement of the foreign imbro- 
glio. Were they to be treated to an explanation and 
a defence of what Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey 
had said in reply to questions? Surely the answers 
when they were given were quite sufficient to dis- 
pose of the ugly rumours. Why unearth all those 
answers now? Was it not enough, the assurance 
that no compact of any kind committing the coun- 
try to obligations of war would be entered into with- 
out the consent of the House? Even the Foreign 



298 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Secretary, himself, In November, 191 1, had said: 

" I saw a comment made the other day, when these arti- 
cles (Moroccan secret agreements) were published, that if 
a Government would keep little things secret, a fortiori they 
would keep big things secret. That is absolutely untrue. 
There may be reasons why a Government should make 
secret arrangements of that kind if they are not things of 
first-rate importance — if they are subsidiary to matters of 
great importance. But that is the very reason the British 
Government should not make secret engagements which 
commit Parliament to obligations of war. It would be 
foolish to do it. No British Government could embark 
upon a war without public opinion behind it, and such en- 
gagements as there are which really commit Parliament 
to anything of that kind are contained in Treaties or Agree- 
ments which have been laid before the House. For our- 
selves, we have not made a single secret article of any kind 
since we came into office." 

That statement was made just one year before he 
exchanged letters with the French ambassador, and 
about six years after he authorized the conversations 
between the British and French military and naval 
experts. There was nothing to spring on the 
House! On August 3rd, the House was quite free 
to decide what the British attitude would be. Quite ! 
It could recall the fleet If It thought fit, it could coun- 
termand the orders to the Expeditionary Force, and 
it could tear up the plans of General Staffs. The 
mockery of it all! when Reuter told us what was 
happening In Petersburg: 

" St. Petersburg, August 3rd. 
" Crowds of thousands of people made demonstrations 
to-day before the British Embassy here. Sir George Bu- 
chanaiv, the ambassador, appeared at the window and 



A RUBBER STAMP 299 

addressed the crowd. Amid frantic cheering he declared 
England's perfect sympathy with Russia. The Secretary 
of the Embassy, standing beside the ambassador, then raised 
cheers for Russia." 

Did the British ambassador at Petersburg be- 
lieve the House of Commons was free to do anything 
else but vote supply? And what would it have mat- 
tered to the Government if one hundred members 
challenged a division on a vote of credit? There 
were five hundred to vote for it. Opinion in the 
House was ripe enough, if it were not nearly ripe 
in the country. The week end had made all the 
difference. Why the statement was not made on the 
Friday, or on the Thursday when Sir Edward Grey 
was told repeatedly that a British declaration to sup- 
port France and. Russia would have made for peace, 
must be obvious to any one who has gone into the 
whole matter. The Cabinet were not agreed until 
Sunday night. There were other weighty reasons, 
but that was the chief one. Preparations had gone 
too far on Sunday for the Government to decline 
to honour the negotiations of the " Commander of 
the Forces." 

Sir Edward Grey's explanation of what took place 
in January, 1906, is curious, looked at in the light 
of the Delcasse interview and the Lausanne reve- 
lations referred to elsewhere. He said: 

" In this present crisis up till yesterday, we have also 
given no promise of anything more than diplomatic sup- 
port — up till yesterday no promise of more than diplomatic 
support. Now I must make this question of obligation 
clear to the House. I must go back to the first Moroccan 
crisis in igo6. That was the time of the Algeciras Con- 
ference, and it came at a time of very great difficulty to 



300 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

His Majesty's Government when a general election was 
in progress, and Ministers were scattered over the country, 
and I — spending three days a week in my constituency and 
three days at the Foreign Office — was asked the question 
whether if that crisis developed into war between France 
and Germany we would give armed support. I said then 
that I could promise nothing to any foreign Power unless 
it was subsequently to receive the whole-hearted support of 
public opinion here if the occasion arose. I said, in my 
opinion, if war was forced upon France then on the ques- 
tion of Morocco — a question which had just been the 
subject of agreement between this country and France, an 
agreement exceedingly popular on both sides — that if out 
of that agreement war was forced on France at that time, 
in my view public opinion in this country would have ral- 
lied to the material support of France. I gave no promise, 
but I expressed that opinion during the crisis, as far as I 
can remember, almost in the same words, to the French 
ambassador and the German ambassador at the same time. 
I made no promise, and I used no threats; but I expressed 
that opinion. That position was accepted by the French 
Government, but they said to me at the time — and I think 
very reasonably — ' if you think it possible that the public 
opinion of Great Britain might, should a sudden crisis 
arise, justify you in giving to France the armed support 
which you cannot promise in advance, you will not be able 
to give that support, even if you wish to give it, when the 
time comes, unless some conversations have already taken 
place between naval and military experts.' There was 
force in that. I agreed to it, and authorized those conver- 
sations to take place, but on the distinct understanding that 
nothing which passed between military and naval experts 
should bind either Government or restrict in any way their 
freedom to make a decision as to whether or not they would 
give that support when the time arose." 

Nothing binding ! But what did the French Gov- 
ernment care about that; all they wanted was his 



REVELATIONS 301 

consent to the conversations. That was all-sufficient. 
Once conversations had gone so far as to affect the 
military and naval positions of the two countries, 
the experts and General Staffs would see to it that 
Britain would be unable to leave France in the lurch 
when the " sudden crisis " arose. No one can blame 
the French ambassador for taking every advantage 
of the new Foreign Secretary; in the game of diplo- 
macy M. Cambon won all along the line. But was 
it not bad enough to leave the making of war and 
peace to a Cabinet; bad enough to let the fate of a 
nation remain in the hands of diplomatists? To 
yield up the most vital interests of our people to the 
whims and caprices of militarists was the most colos- 
sal blunder a Liberal statesman could be guilty of in 
these days of armament-rings and a subsidized Jingo 
press. 

We now understand many cryptic utterances of 
Conservative statesmen delivered during the month 
of December, 1905. Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
man had spoken at the Albert Hall on armaments 
and suggested a reduction of expenditure. Five 
days afterwards, Mr. Balfour replied to the new 
Prime Minister's speech. Mr. Balfour said: 

" I noticed with amazement that Sir Henry Campbell- 
Bannerman, at the Albert Hall, in the speech to which I 
have just referred, announced to his audience that he meant 
to cut down the cost, and, as I understood him, with the 
cost the number and magnitude of the defensive forces of 
the Crown — Army and Navy, as the case may be. I won- 
der whether he consulted the present Secretary of State for 
War before giving that pledge. I doubt whether he did. 
. . . His pledge to reduce the cost of our armaments and 
the magnitude of our armaments is a pledge not given with 



302 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

knowledge, not given after study, not given in consequence 
of our Imperial responsibilities." 

Did Mr. Balfour mean that the new Liberal Gov- 
ernment had not only taken over the foreign policy 
of their predecessors, but they had also taken over 
the secret understandings with France to give armed 
support when the "sudden crisis" would arise? 
What else could Mr. Balfour mean? Lord Percy, 
the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 
said, just before his Government resigned, that, " no 
one doubted for a moment that the Liberal party 
would faithfully fulfil the obligations which the Gov- 
ernment had already entered into with various coun- 
tries. They would, of course, fulfil in the spirit and 
the letter the understanding which we had happily 
made with France." Why should Mr. Balfour won- 
der whether Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had 
consulted Mr. Haldane, the Secretary for War, be- 
fore suggesting reduction of " cost of armaments 
and the magnitude of our armaments," if it were not 
a matter of our being committed to obligations of 
war with France? Continuity of foreign policy en- 
tailed continui'ty of armed support, and all the diplo- 
matic sins of political forefathers were inherited by 
the Puritan fathers, who were pledged to the coun- 
try to walk in the paths of freedom, righteousness, 
and peace. 

The House had listened to the Foreign Secretary's 
explanation with the receptiveness of children, but 
without their insistent inqulsitiveness. The House 
was not in an analytical mood, for the combative 
instinct does not carry analysis with It. The ex- 
planation of how the letters came to be exchanged 
with M. Cambon was accepted without amazement: 



FOREIGN OFFICE'S CASE 303 

** The Agadir crisis came — another Moroccan crisis — 
and throughout that I took precisely the same line that had 
been taken in 1906. But subsequently, in 19 12, after dis- 
cussion and consideration in the Cabinet it was decided that 
we ought to have a definite understanding in writing, which 
was to be only in the form of an unofficial letter, and these 
considerations which took place were not binding upon the 
freedom of either Government; and on the 22nd of Novem- 
ber, 1 9 12, I wrote to the French ambassador the letter 
which I will now read to the House; and I received from 
him a letter in similar terms in reply. The letter which 
I have to read to the House is this, and it will be known 
to the public now as the record that, whatever took place 
between military and naval experts, they were not binding 
engagements npon the Government: 

"'My dear Ambassador: From time to time in recent 
years the French and British military and naval experts 
have consulted together. It has always been understood 
that such consultation does not restrict the freedom of either 
Government to decide at any future time whether or not 
to assist the other by armed force. We have agreed that 
consultation between experts is not and ought not to be 
regarded as an engagement that commits either Government 
to action in a contingency that has not yet arisen and may 
never arise. The disposition, for instance, of the French 
and British fleets respectively at the present moment is not 
based upon an engagement to co-operate in war. 

" ' You have, however, pointed out that, if either Govern- 
ment have grave reason to expect an unprovoked attack by 
a third Power, it might become essential to know whether 
it could in that event depend upon the armed assistance of 
the other. 

" * I agree that, if either Government had grave reason 
to expect an unprovoked attack by a third Power, or some- 
thing that threatened the general peace, it should immedi- 
ately discuss with the other whether both Governments 
should act together to prevent aggression and to preserve 



304 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

peace, and, if so, what measures they would be prepared to 
take in common.' " 

The most important sentence In the letter which is 
given in full in the White Paper, not published until 
August 6th, was not read to the House : 

" If these measures involved action, the plans of the Gen- 
eral Staffs would at once be taken into consideration, and 
the Governments would then decide what effect should be 
given to them." 

A remarkable letter! If there had been a para- 
graph in it on the neutrality of Belgium it would 
have been complete. But what it had to do with the 
Agadir crisis no one but the Foreign Secretary knows. 
It bears a date twelve months after the Agadir affair 
was closed. It is an amazing document, look at it 
how you will. It might seem to some people that it 
should bear a date somewhere about the beginning 
of July, 191 1 ; others might think a date not later 
than July 29th, 19 14, would be nearer the mark. 
There is, however, this to be considered: when Lord 
Hugh Cecil heckled the Prime Minister In February, 
19 13, he described the position quite fairly; but, on 
the other hand, In the session of 19 13, both in the 
Commons and the Lords, Ministers stated quite 
frankly that It was left to the French fleet to bear 
the brunt of looking after British Interests in the 
Mediterranean. 

If the House had been given the last paragraph 
of the letter It would have been In a better position 
to understand the Foreign Secretary's desperate 
pleading for sympathy for the undefended northern 
and western coasts of France. He went on to say: 

" The French fleet is now in the Mediterranean, and the 



" FRIENDSHIP AND CONFIDENCE " 305, 

northern and western coasts of France are absolutely un- 
defended. The French fleet being concentrated in the 
Mediterranean, the situation is very different from what it 
used to be, because thje friendship which has grown up 
between the two countries has given them a sense of secur- 
ity that there was nothing to be feared from us. The 
French coasts are absolutely undefended. The French fleet 
is in the Mediterranean, and has for some years been con- 
centrated there because of the feeling of confidence and 
friendship which has existed between the two countries. 
... If we say nothing at this moment, what is France to 
do with her fleet in the Mediterranean? If she leaves it 
there, with no statement from us as to what we will do, 
she leaves her northern and western coasts absolutely un- 
defended, at the mercy of a German fleet coming down the 
Channel, to do as it pleases in a war of life and death 
between them. If we say nothing, it may be that the 
French fleet is withdrawn from the Mediterranean. . . . 
We have not kept a fleet in the Mediterranean which is 
equal to dealing alone with a combination of other fleets 
in the Mediterranean." 

So it was friendship and confidence that kept the 
French fleet in the Mediterranean and left the 
northern and western coasts absolutely undefended. 
The conversations between the British and French 
experts had nothing to do with it. The General 
Staffs, trusting wholly to the friendship which had 
grown up, left the coasts of Brittany, Normandy, 
Biscay, and the Straits, absolutely undefended. Ac- 
cording to military laws, they ought to have been 
shot. In the early days of M. Delcasse there must 
have been keener men on the staff, for in July, 1905, 
the Foreign Secretary of France said, " The entente "1 
between the two countries, and the coalition of their ' 
navies, constitutes such a formidable machine of 



3o6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

naval war that neither Germany, nor any other 
Power, would dare to face such an overwhelming 
force at sea." Friendship and confidence then evi- 
dently did not supersede military resource and naval 
foresight. 

The British Foreign Secretary made great play 
with the story of the French fleet being concen- 
trated in the Mediterranean, and the French coasts 
being absolutely undefended. In the French des- 
patches in the Yellow Book, however, there is noth- 
ing about the French fleet being concentrated in the 
Mediterranean, and the northern and western coasts 
being absolutely undefended. Indeed all reference 
to the disposition of the French fleet and the de- 
fenceless position of her northern and western coasts 
are suppressed in French despatches. Perhaps the 
story was for British consumption only. Singularly 
enough the French diplomatic documents throw 
quite another light on the question of the French 
fleet. It was on August ist that the question was 
discussed between Sir Edward Grey and M. Cam- 
bon. The French ambassador then sent word to 
the French Prime Minister that " Sir Edward Grey 
will propose to his colleagues that they should de- 
clare that the fleet will oppose the passage of the 
German squadrons through the Straits; or, if they 
passed the Straits, to any demonstration on the 
French coasts." That was the day before the mat- 
ter was discussed by the Cabinet. The authoriza- 
tion to this proposal was given by the Cabinet the 
next day; but in the French ambassador's despatch 
to his Government he did not refer to the disposi- 
tion of the fleet; he did not say why the British Cabi- 
net had given the pledge to assist the French " if a 



VIVIANI VS. GREY 307 

German fleet were to undertake acts of war against 
the French coasts or the French mercantile marine." 
On August 2nd, M. Viviani, the French Prime 
Minister, telegraphed to the French ambassador at 
London as follows : 

" In communicating to the Chambers the same declara- 
tion that Sir Edward Grey has made to you, of which your 
last telegram gives me the text, I will add that we have 
herein obtained from Great Britain a first support, the value 
of which is precious to us. 

" I propose, moreover, to indicate that the assistance 
which Great Britain has the intention of giving to France, 
with the view of protecting the French coasts or the French 
mercantile marine, would be so exerted as to afford equal 
support to our Navy by the English Fleet, in the case of a 
Franco-German conflict, in the Atlantic as well as in the 
North Sea and in the English Channel." 

This does not coincide with the statement made In 
the House by Sir Edward Grey. If the French 
fleet were concentrated in the Mediterranean and 
the northern and western coasts were absolutely un- 
defended, how could the French fleet fear an attack 
from the German navy in the Atlantic, or in the 
North Sea, or in the English Channel? Either the 
French Prime Minister did not know where his fleet 
was at the time, or Sir Edward Grey had been mis- 
informed by the French ambassador. The British 
Foreign Secretary was certain when he notified our 
ambassador at Paris on August 2nd, of the Cabinet 
decision to give naval support to France, that the 
French fleet was concentrated In the Mediterranean, 
avid that the north coast was " entirely undefended." 
And we were led to believe such was the disposition 
of the French fleet when the Foreign Secretary spoke 



3o8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

to the House on August 3rd, and made out an ex- 
tremely pathetic case which served its purpose. 

The first half of the speech was devoted to France 
and the second half to Belgium. He referred to the 
German reply to his question about observing the neu- 
trality of Belgium, but he said nothing about his in- 
terview with Prince Lichnowsky. All the House got 
from him on the real situation was just so much as 
would help his case and no more. After dealing 
with his communication to the Belgian Government 
he said: 

" It now appears from the news I have received to-day 
— which has come quite recently, and I am not yet quite 
sure how far it has reached me in an accurate form — that 
an ultimatum has been given to Belgium by Germany, the 
object of which was to offer Belgium friendly relations with 
Germany on condition that she vi^ould facilitate the passage 
of German troops through Belgium. Well, sir, until one 
has these things absolutely definitely, up to the last moment, 
I do not wish to say all that one would say if one were 
in the position to give the House full, complete, and abso- 
lute information on the point. We were sounded in the 
course of last week as to whether if a guarantee were given 
that, after the war, Belgian integrity would be preserved 
that would content us. We replied that we could not bar- 
gain away whatever interests or obligations we had in 
Belgian neutrality." 

That was an absolutely misleading account of what 
had taken place between Berlin and London. *' I 
do not wish to say all ! " All ! no indeed, it would 
not have done to say all on August 3rd. But, then, 
it was only the House of Commons he was address- 
ing; a House of Commons without the White Paper, 
without documents of any kind relating to the mo- 



A GREAT FRENCH COUP 309 

mentous business it was supposed to deal with. Sup- 
pose he had Informed the House that up to Friday, 
July 31st, he had been told over and over again by 
both Russia and France that a declaration of Brit- 
ish solidarity with those countries would have made 
for peace. Suppose he had told the House that the 
German Chancellor would not have made the sug- 
gestion about Belgian integrity after the war, If the 
Foreign Secretary had let the British ambassador at 
Berlin know about the warning given to Prince Llch- 
nowsky, as soon as he let the British ambassador at 
Paris know of it. To refer to despatch No. 85 with- 
out giving the House the Information In despatches 
Nos. 98 and 102, and the explanation of the three 
despatches, was not quite honourable to say the least. 

" We worked for peace up to the last moment, and be- 
yond the last moment. How hard, how persistently, and 
how earnestly we strove for peace last week, the House will 
see from the papers that will be before it." 

Strove for peace ! Yes, that was true. And what 
a striving! Bound hand and foot from the be- 
ginning to support France, and working night and 
day for peace. It was one of the greatest triumphs 
of French diplomacy since the days of Talleyrand. 
So the House was left with its hands quite free to 
decide — what? That the will of the experts shall 
prevail. Then, having performed the duties of a 
representative body, members passed from the 
period when costly armaments were sure preventives 
of war, and foreign friendships the safest guardians 
of peace, out Into a world distraught In which a 
" whole generation of men went mad and tore them- 
selves to pieces." 



310 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

While the Foreign Secretary was busy explaining 
himself to the House of Commons, the French Gov- 
ernment thought it was high time to do something 
practical in the interests of Belgium, so they offered 
military support. The British ambassador at Brus- 
sels sent the following message to Sir Edward Grey: 

" French Government have offered through their military 
attache the support of five French Army Corps to the Bel- 
gian Government. Following reply had been received 
to-day : 

We are sincerely grateful to the French Government 
for offering eventual support. In the actual circumstances, 
however, we do not propose to appeal to the guarantee of 
the Powers. Belgian Government will decide later on the 
action which they may think it necessary to take.' " 

This offer of five army corps from the French is 
suppressed in the Belgian White Paper. The reason 
for this is evident in the communication M. Davig- 
non made on August 3rd, to the German ambassador : 

" The German Government stated in their note of Au- 
gust 2nd, that according to reliable information French 
forces intended to march on the Meuse via Givet and 
Namur, and that Belgium, in spite of her best intentions, 
would not be in a position to repulse, without assistance, an 
advance of French troops. The German Government, 
therefore, considered themselves compelled to anticipate this 
attack and to violate Belgian territory. In these circum- 
stances, Germany proposed to the Belgian Government to 
adopt a friendly attitude towards her, and undertook, on 
the conclusion of peace, to guarantee the integrity of the 
Kingdom and its possessions to their full extent. The note 
added that if Belgium put difficulties in the way of the 
advance of German troops, Germany would be compelled 
to consider her as an enemy, and to leave the ultimate ad- 



" COOPERATION "— WHERE ? 311 

justment of the relations between the two States to the 
decision of arms." 

Further, the Belgian Minister said that If France 
violated the neutrality of Belgium, her army " would 
offer the most vigorous resistance to the Invader." 

In Sir Edward Grey's message to the British am- 
bassador at Berlin he refers to the telegram from 
the King of the Belgians to King George, and men- 
tions the proposal of the German Government for 
a free passage for troops through Belgium; but 
nothing Is said of the French plan, alleged by the 
Germans, to march on the Meuse. 

The Germans entered Belgian territory on the 
morning of August 4th. When the House of Com- 
mons met, the Prime Minister made a short state- 
ment, and sent an ultimatum to the German Govern- 
ment respecting the neutrality of Belgium, calling 
for a reply before midnight. The Army Reserve 
was ordered out on permanent service. 

That same evening the British ambassador at 
Berlin received his passports, and after eleven o'clock 
that night a state of war existed between Germany 
and Great Britain. 

The saddest note of all was, perhaps, that from 
the French ambassador at Brussels to the French 
Government: 

** The Chef du Cabinet of the Belgian Ministry of War 
has asked the French military attache to prepare at once 
for the co-operation and contact of French troops with the 
Belgian Army, pending the results of the appeal to the 
guaranteeing Powers now being made. Orders have there- 
fore been given to Belgian provincial governors not to 
regard movem.ents of French troops as a violation of the 
frontier." 



312 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Co-operation! The cries at Liege and Namur 
were, "Where are the French? Where are the 
Enghsh?" And General Leman who thought it 
possible to hold Liege for three days, astonished the 
whole world by the heroic struggle which kept the 
Germans at bay for ten days ! 

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Sec- 
retary in their speeches on August 3rd, and 6th, men- 
tioned the interview recorded in despatch No. 123. 
The whole case Mr. Asquith made against Germany 
was based upon the " infamous proposal " despatch 
No. 85. When towards the end of August the For- 
eign Secretary was asked " whether the proposals 
of Prince Lichnowsky were submitted to and consid- 
ered by the Cabinet, and if not, why proposals in- 
volving such far-reaching possibilities were thus re- 
jected," Sir Edward Grey replied, " These were 
personal suggestions made by the ambassador on 
August I St, and without authority to alter the con- 
ditions of neutrality proposed by the German Chan- 
cellor." Then followed a rambling statement about 
Cabinet efforts on the 2nd, to find conditions on which 
Britain would remain neutral; but no word about 
Prince Lichnowsky's suggestions being submitted 
to the Cabinet. The Foreign Secretary's explana- 
tion of the reason why he did not refer to No. 123 
is as follows : 

" I have been asked why I did not refer to No. 123 in 
the White Paper when I spoke in the House on August 
3rd. If I had referred to suggestions to us as to conditions 
of neutrality I must have referred to No. 85, the proposals 
made not personally by the ambassador but officially by the 



A BELATED CASUS BELLI 313 

German Chancellor, which were so condemned by the Prime 
Minister subsequently, and this would have made the case 
against the German Government much stronger than I did 
make it in my speech, i deliberately refrained from doing 
that then." 

The best that can be said for that answer Is that 
the Foreign Secretary had not taken the precaution 
of reading again his speech before replying to Mr. 
Keir Hardle. Not only did the Foreign Secretary 
refer to No. 85, but he scored one of his biggest 
points In telling the House what his reply was to the 
suggested " bargain." But the Important point is 
not whether the Interview referred to In No. 123 
was discussed by the Cabinet, but whether Sir Ed- 
ward Grey told the Cabinet that the " bargain " 
would not have been made had the German Chancel- 
lor known early on the 29th, that the Foreign Sec- 
retary " was about to warn Prince LIchnowsky not 
to count on our standing aside." The " bargain " 
was suggested before the German Chancellor knew 
that Britain might not stand aside, and before the 
Foreign Secretary asked the Belgian Government 
what they Intended to do about their neutrality. The 
" bargain " was suggested on the night of July 29th, 
and the first communication from the Foreign Office, 
recorded In the White Paper, to the British ambas- 
sador at Brussels, was sent on August ist. If the 
Cabinet had known on the 30th, the contents of des- 
patch No. 98, there might have been no necessity 
for sending No. loi, which contained the reply to 
No. 85. So little did the Cabinet think of the ques- 
tion of the neutrality of Belgium that they had not 
agreed to make it the casus belli until the even- 



314 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ing of Sunday, August 2nd, — four whole days after 
the German Chancellor spoke to the British am- 
bassador at Berlin about it. 

The suggestions made by the German ambassador 
on August 1st, were personal and offered without 
authority, but does despatch No. 123 indicate in the 
slightest degree that the Foreign Secretary was un- 
der the impression when he spoke to the German am- 
bassador that he was dealing with a man who had 
no authority? If Sir Edward Grey doubted the 
authority of Prince Lichnowsky, why did he neglect 
to ask, in his message to Sir E. Goschen, if the am- 
bassador had authority from the Berlin Foreign Of- 
fice to discuss terms of British neutrality? For the 
British Foreign Secretary to try to escape from a 
dilemma by casting doubt on the authority of the ac- 
credited agent of the German Government was not 
clever; because the Foreign Secretary had at least 
five opportunities of finding out from Sir E. Goschen 
whether Prince Lichnowsky had power to act for the 
German Government. 

But, whether the German ambassador had au- 
thority or not, whether the suggestions were per- 
sonal or oflicial, the Foreign Secretary declined the 
lot, — lock, stock, and barrel. He " felt obliged to 
refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral on 
similar terms." Britain must keep her hand free, so 
that the Government's attitude might be determined 
largely by public opinion. " The neutrality of Bel- 
gium would appeal very strongly to public opinion 
here," but he " did not think that we could give a 
promise of neutrality on that condition alone." 
Such a maze of contradiction and equivocation was 
enough to make the wretched German ambassador 



JINGOES AND JINGOES 315 

wonder whether the British Foreign Secretary had 
authority to make a direct statement on any question 
but free hands and agreements that would not bind 
the Government. 

Thus, secret diplomacy, conversations of military 
and naval experts, and the plans of General Staffs, 
launched this nation into war. And Germany sent 
her troops into the small, weak, State of Luxem- 
bourg, without a word of remonstrance from Britain, 
the guardian of international " scraps of paper." 
The Jingoes, and many of those " In the know," got 
what they had sedulously toiled for through eight 
long years of scares in which every brutish instinct 
was stirred. The only regret some of them had 
was that the War Office could not put 500,000 men 
into Belgium when the trouble arose. 

Jingoes there are In every country; but the differ- 
ence between the Prussian and the British cult Is 
that Prussian Jingoes are soldiers as a rule and 
British Jingoes are not. Whether It is better to let 
military Jingoes run an empire than trust Its fate to 
commercial Jingoes, Is a question that must wait solu- 
tion until the empire that has always spent many more 
millions on armaments than Germany, destroys 
Prussian militarism. Is It then too much to 
hope that when the empire that has had little rest 
from wars and expeditions, teaches the empire that 
has known very little war since 1870, how to suffer 
military defeat as well as diplomatic humiliation, that 
a Jingo will find it as difficult to lodge upon British 
territoi"y as Germans to find their place In the sun? 

The question of Who began it? caused little con- 
troversy during August, because It was considered 
most unpatriotic to blame any one but the Kaiser 



3i6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

or the Crown Prince or the German Chancellor or 
the German ambassador at Petersburg or Vienna. 
Some people went so far as to deny any credit to an 
Austrian. Few were as wise about it as the man 
on the 'bus who said, "Well, guv'ner, we're in it; 
that's all." But no war can be fought without a 
scapegoat; it is almost as necessary as a map and 
pins with coloured heads. In starting out to fix 
responsibility on some person or Power, It is essen- 
tial that the date from which investigation starts 
should be selected with certainty to embrace all those 
issues and events which are relevant to the foreign 
policies of the countries involved in the dispute. To 
begin with the murder of the Archduke is sensational, 
but much too recent; it is convenient for the theory 
that the Kaiser dictated the Austrian note to Servia; 
that, however, is its only merit. 

Not through Servia or Austria are the signposts 
to be found which will enable us to retrace our steps 
to the place and date when we fell " into transform- 
ing degenerations." We must look south, towards 
Agadir, then to Fez, and back through Tangier, 
Spain, and Paris, to London, where the Anglo-French 
Agreement was signed April 6th, 1904. It was not 
a person, or some one particular Power, that was re- 
sponsible for this war. It was a system that brought 
it about; and that system was secret diplomacy. 

Who then Is to blame for secret diplomacy? The 
people of the nations which practise it; and those 
nations boasting the freest Institutions should bear 
the greatest responsibility. 



CHAPTER XIV 

RECRIMINATION 

" That there exists between France and Germany a senti- 
mental anim>osity; and that between Germany and England 
there is an economic rivalry, we do not deny; but what we 
deny is that there exists from country to country, between 
these three p;reat nations, any fundamental and irreconcila- 
ble antagonism. It is, therefore, our claim to put an end 
to all enmity between them and do away with all animosity. 
War would no longer settle anything. The times are gone 
when the conqueror destroyed the vanquished people and 
reduced it to slavery. A war would henceforward be a 
useless disaster and vain crime." 

— Anatole France, London, December nth, 1913. 

Of all the many organizations started In Ger- 
many and Britain to promote a clearer understand- 
ing and a better feeling between the two peoples, the 
Albert Committee under the presidency of Lord Ave- 
bury, was the best. It Invited the co-operation of 
every one Interested In seeing that our relations with 
Germany should be conducted according to reason 
and not clouded and endangered by Ignorance and 
prejudice. The Anglo-German Friendship Com- 
mittee and the Associated Councils of Churches for 
fostering friendly relations between the two peoples, 
were strong bodies. These Councils and Commit- 
tees enrolled most of Britain's worthiest men. How 
powerless they were to avert the strife when the 

Z^7 



3i8 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

diplomatists took control of affairs in July, 19 14, is 
a lesson which must not be forgotten. The bench 
of Bishops, the leading nonconformist divines, the 
Cathohc prelates, eminent professors, members of 
the Houses of Parliament, distinguished men of sci- 
ence, literature, and art, were as little children in 
the hands of the men of the chancelleries. 

Looking over the pre-war literature published by 
these Councils and Committees is a heart-breaking 
business. The article published by Mr. Basil Wil- 
liams in the Edinburgh Review, October, 1909, 
reads like pages from a Utopia written long years 
before Sir Thomas More ordered Wolsey from 
the precincts of the Commons. In that article Mr. 
Williams says " for more than four hundred years 
Englishmen and Germans have fought side by side in 
almost every European war." And he quotes 
Stubbs : 

" England in spite of the Reformation maintained her 
alliance with Germany: her instincts were German and her 
antipathies were anti-French. As the Hapsburgs divided 
and grew weak, England sought new allies among the 
younger Powers; but in all the great struggles of Europe 
she has had Germany, whether Austrian or Prussian, on 
her side." 

Then Mr. Williams goes on to show how the 
grievous work of ignorance and prejudice brought 
about misunderstanding and enmity. He says : 

" Barely four years ago men of responsibility in Germany 
were quite convinced that England designed a sudden attack 
upon their country without any previous declaration of war 
or other warning. Fears have been expressed that Ham- 
burg, lying, it may be noted, some fifty miles up a river well 



WHAT DID HE KNOW? 319 

fortified on either bank, is liable to bombardment by the 
British fleet; and manj^ Germans have long seriously be- 
lieved that w^e intend to annihilate the German navy while 
it is still comparatively ,small and an easy morsel for ours. 
German writers and even German statesmen see in Eng- 
land's every act of friendship to another Power a fixed 
policy of isolating Germany." 

Was Mr. Lloyd George conscious of such a fixed 
policy on January ist, 19 14, when in the Daily 
Chronicle he gave his views on armaments? He 
said: 

" Both countries seem to have realized what ought to 
have been fp'rly obvious long ago, that they have nothing 
to gain and everything to lose by a quarrel, and that they 
have everything to gain and nothing to lose by reverting 
to the old policy of friendliness which had been maintained, 
until within recent years, for centuries between Germany 
and this country. . . . The German army is vital, not 
merely to the existence of the German Empire, but to the 
very life and independence of the nation itself, surrounded 
as Germany is by other nations each of which possesses 
armies almost as powerful as her own. We forget that, 
while we insist upon a 6o per cent, superiority (so far as 
our naval strength is concerned) over Germany being es- 
sential to guarantee the integrity of our own shores — Ger- 
many herself has nothing like that superiority over France 
alone, and she has, of course, in addition, to reckon with 
Russia on her eastern frontier. Germany has nothing 
which approximates to a two-Power standard. She has, 
therefore, become alarmed by recent events, and is spending 
huge sums of money on the expansion of her military 
resources." 

What the " recent events " which occasioned alarm 
in Germany were we now know. And since ministers 
have started their campaigns of recrimination on the 



320 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

platform and in the Press much has been brought to 
light which shows how difficult it is to get at the 
truth of foreign affairs and armaments under the 
present system. Much has been written and said 
recently in connection with the Berlin conversations. 
Since the war began the political and diplomatic 
giants of Britain and Germany have been busily at 
work informing their peoples of one another's perfidy 
and chicanery. A pretty spectacle for decent simple 
folk! Perhaps it would have been better to leave 
the mud at the bottom of the well and let the rank 
water lie undisturbed. It is not nice to find political 
leaders of any country hoodwinking the people, say- 
ing things which are not true, making friendly 
speeches to cover unfriendly business. Again the 
year 191 2 has been brought into the limelight, this 
time by Mr. Asquith, who in a speech at Cardiff, 
October 2, 19 14, told us more about the negotiations 
which passed between Germany and Britain, than he 
condescended to tell the House of Commons in the 
debates of 19 12. Referring no doubt to the con- 
versations between Lord Haldane and the German 
Chancellor, Mr. Asquith said: 

" We laid down — and I wish to call not only your at- 
tention, but the attention of the whole world to this, when 
so many false legends are now being invented and circulated 
— in the following, year, in the year 19 12, we laid down, 
in terms carefully approved by the Cabinet and which I 
will textually quote, what our relations with Germany 
ought in our view to be. We said, and we communicated 
this to the German Government : ' Britain declares that 
she will neither make nor join in any unprovoked attack on 
Germany. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject, 
and forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combi- 



THE SUCKING DOVE 321 

nation to which Britain is a party; nor will she become a 
party to any thing that has such an object.' There is noth- 
ing ambiguous or equivocal about that. But that was not 
enough for German statesmanship. They wanted us to go 
further. They asked us to pledge ourselves absolutely to 
neutrality in the event of Germany being engaged in war 
— and this, mind you, at a time when Germany was enor- 
mously increasing both her aggressive and defensive re- 
sources, and especially upon the sea. They asked us for a 
free hand, so far as we were concerned, if and when they 
selected the opportunity to overbear, to dominate the Euro- 
pean world. To such a demand but one answer was possi- 
ble, and that was the answer we gave." 

This is exceedingly interesting, for it proves the 
utter impossibility of the House ever learning from 
Ministers just how international affairs stand. On 
July 25th, 19 1 2, Mr. Asquith made a speech In the 
House of Commons and referred to the Berlin con- 
versations begun by Lord Haldane six months earlier 
in that year. Question after question had been put 
by private members on the subject during the spring 
without drawing much definite Information from the 
Treasury. It was a matter for congratulation In 
July to learn from the Prime Minister that: 

" Our relations with the great German Empire are, I 
am glad to say, at this moment — and I feel sure are likely 
to remain — relations of amity and good will. My noble 
friend Lord Haldane paid a visit to Berlin early in the 
year. He entered upon conversations and an interchange 
of views there which have been continued since in a spirit 
of perfect frankness and friendship both on one side or the 
other and in which I am glad to say we now have the ad- 
vantage of the participation of a very distinguished diplo- 
matist in the person of the German Ambassador." 



322 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

There Is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about 
that. But what would have happened If the state- 
ment made by Mr. Asquith at Cardiff, October, 
1 914, had been made In July, 19 12, to the Commons 
when he said to the House: 

" I say, and I say this deliberately, we have no cause, and 
so far as I know no occasion, for quarrel with any country 
in any part of the world." 

Did the Prime Minister then know that Germany 
had asked for a free hand and that Britain should 
pledge herself absolutely to neutrality In the event of 
Germany being engaged In war? These, then, were 
the amicable conversations carried on between Lord 
Haldane and the German Chancellor! But why did 
Germany test us in that way? In July, 191 2, ac- 
cording to rumour she had just about reached the 
end of her financial tether; her military preparations 
had been then stretched nearly to the utmost; she 
had reached the climax of expenditure on her navy — 
notwithstanding Mr. Asqulth's statement at Cardiff 
about Germany In 191 2 enormously Increasing her 
aggressive and defensive resources, especially on 
sea. He was misinformed. Though her gross 
naval expenditure rose, Germany reduced her ex- 
penditure on new construction by £500,000 In 191 2; 
but she saw both France and Russia vote an addi- 
tional £6,963,124 on new construction for 19 12-13. 
Russia, alone for that year spent more on new con- 
struction than Germany did. Why should Germany 
ask us for a free hand? Did she glean from the 
amicable conversations that we were fettered, and 
wish to test the strength of our engagements ? Any- 
way, her request that we should remain neutral shows 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FACTS 323 

how much faith she placed in the declaration of the 
Cabinet, referred to by Mr. Asquith. Germany 
then no doubt knew more about Britain's obligations 
to France and Russia than did the vast majority of 
the members of the House of Commons. 

The result of all the frank and friendly conversa- 
tions between Germany and Britain in 191 2 was seen 
in the new military laws of France and Germany. 
Ever since Britain departed from her isolated posi- 
tion in diplomacy, since she threw in her lot with 
France and aided and abetted France in the sordid 
schemes of exploiting territory in Africa, Germany 
has worked with unremitting energy to perfect her 
military system and build up a modern navy which 
would be the equal of that of France. What else 
was to be expected? When Jingo ministers in Brit- 
ain and France express such sentiments against Ger- 
many as those attributed to M. Delcasse and Lord 
Roberts no other result could be looked for than 
German military and naval preparation on the high- 
est scale. Blame Germany for her ruthless policy 
in taking French territory, blame France for her 
policy in Africa, curse the Kaiser for all the sins of 
divine-right monarchs, and when the full course of 
all-round denunciation is complete, there is left the 
palpable conspiracy of Entente Powers to isolate 
Germany. Diplomacy destroyed every bridge 
raised by pacifists in the principal European States, 
to march the workers into an international corps 
which would overthrow militarism and bureaucratic 
rule. Diplomacy in dividing Europe into two hostile 
camps stimulated militarism in all its branches; in 
each State it fostered the vast international arma- 
ment interests; it raised up a literature of enmity 



324 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

and hatred; and threw the fate of democracies into 
the hands of miUtary and naval experts. After the 
British Foreign Office became entangled in the 
meshes of the Continental System, war-lords flour- 
ished to greater extent than at any time since 1870. 
The outcome of ten years of diplomatic labour in en- 
tente enterprises amounted to suspicion and enmity, 
distrust and hate, leading up to the only possible cli- 
max, — a Continental War. And the pity and pain of 
it is that the British Foreign Secretary had no desire 
to engulf his country in war. Labouring for peace 
under such a system was a task Sisyphus would not 
envy. What effort worth while could be made by 
the most pacific Foreign Secretary against the system 
which could bring nothing but war? No, Sir Ed- 
ward Grey is not to be charged with belligerent in- 
tentions. He sinned in hiding the whole discredit- 
able business of foreign affairs from the Commons 
and the people. He was the slave of secret diplo- 
macy, and not the servant of the country. If he had 
thought as much of the British people as he thought 
of French diplomatists, he would have had the cour- 
age to tell the country the whole truth about foreign 
affairs and the engagements he inherited from his 
predecessor. Rather than the onus of Morocco and 
Persia, resignation, political oblivion, — anything, so 
long as the people knew the whole truth. 

We shall perhaps never know all that passed be- 
tween Germany and Britain in that year 191 2, and 
an attempt to weave a story of the inwardness of the 
diplomatic negotiations Is well-nigh impossible; so 
inconsistent, so contradictory, are minister's speeches 
and the writings of publicists of the time. Now that 
we have Mr. Asquith's Cardiff speech the whole affair 



MR. BALFOUR AS JEREMIAH 325] 

Is thrown up In a light which does not make our case 
look any better. Lord Haldane's speech in March, 
19 1 2, when he said, "Strategy must respond to 
policy, the policy of' the Foreign Office," and Mr. 
Churchill's reference in February of that year to 
the German navy as " more in the nature of a lux- 
ury " do not harmonize with Mr. Asquith's descrip- 
tion in the following July of our cordial relations 
with Germany. The debates on Imperial Defence 
and the Navy, In 1912, might be read now with 
profit by many people who wish to know something 
of the origin of the war; but nothing In these de- 
bates gives one a shred of evidence as to any useful 
purpose being served by the conversations between 
Lord Haldane and the German Chancellor. " What 
Is the good of diplomacy? " Disraeli asked. The de- 
bates of 19 1 2 In the light of recent statements, proves 
how utterly absurd It was for any one to hope for 
pacific relations so long as Europe was divided Into 
two vast camps arming to destroy each other. Mr, 
Balfour in the House, July 22nd, said: 

" If we are to contemplate the horrible, and, as I hope, 
the impossible — if there is to be this universal Armaged- 
don, then, looking at it from a naval point of view, it seems 
to me that the fleets of the Triple Entente are not inade- 
quate now, and are not going to be inadequate to any strain 
that is going to be placed upon them. If we can conceive, 
if we are driven to conceive, if we are obliged to conceive 
this condition of universal warfare, then I do not say that 
the fleets with which our interests are concerned can be 
regarded as inadequate, in any theatre of operations, to the 
strain which will be thrown upon them. I decline to be- 
lieve it possible that we alone should be concerned with all 
the navies of the world except those, let us say, of France 



326 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

and Russia, who remain neutral in their ports. I hope and 
believe we should not be unequal even to that strain, but 
it is a strain which is surely not probable. Surely, if we 
are to draw these dreadful pictures of international disaster, 
and if that is a necessity forced upon us, we need hardly 
suppose that our evil fate, or even the most imbecile diplo- 
macy, would force us into conflict with these nations with 
whom we have no cause of quarrel, wath whom we have 
been — at all events as regards the Mediterranean Powers 

— on the most friendly terms within the memory of man, 
and who, I can hardly believe, will be driven to attack us, 
and attack us alone in anybody else's quarrel. We must 
prepare even for that danger, but I think it most improbable. 
In any case, if I understand the policy of the Government 
aright, it wall be the most perilous adventure that any State 
could in future engage in, to drag Europe into a war." 

All through the year 19 12, in debates in the House 
and speeches in the country, Germany was the one 
Power speakers challenged on naval supremacy. 
The organization of the North Sea Fleet was re- 
garded in Germany as a direct threat and a menace 

— even German pacifists lost hope; and after the 
Agadir affair, British estimates and preparations had 
all the appearances of a Government heading 
straight for war. Though the Prime Minister and 
the Foreign Secretary poured oily words on the wa- 
ters troubled by our foreign policy, the tempest of 
recrimination abated not one jot. 

It is, however, quite clear why Germany tested our 
neutrality. In asking us to give her a free hand she 
was really inquiring if we were in a position to give 
her a free hand. Certainly the time had come when 
a free hand was necessary for her Imperial existence. 
She could not imperially afford another diplomatic 
humiliation. Forces had been unchained by the 



A CABINET CAT SET FREE 327 

events of the Anglo-French interests in Africa which 
desired other methods of dealing with international 
quarrels. The Crown Prince and his party were in 
the ascendency, and they were no courtiers of the 
pen and the forum; their arena was the place for 
swords and shells. The more evidence they gath- 
ered of British Jingo feeling, the greater naval 
preparations we made, the easier became their task 
of overbearing the moderate party in Germany. It 
would be no difficult task to collect statements from 
speeches and reviews published over a period of years 
in Britain which would serve to influence the German 
Jingo with notions of British belligerence; but our 
actions were sufficient. In debate after debate in 
the House, numbers of members have pointed out 
where ministers and ex-ministers and other more or 
less responsible men have said things calculated to 
annoy Germans. Lord Charles Beresford censured 
the First Lord for dragging Germany into his 
speeches, and when Lord Roberts at Manchester in 
19 1 2, made his famous reference to German pre- 
paredness, the Evening Standard said of it: 

" At a time when all prudent people on both sides of the 
North Sea are endeavouring to establish better relations 
between the two peoples, it is mere wanton mischief-making 
for a man with Lord Roberts's unequalled prestige to use 
words which must drive every German who reads them to 
exasperation," 

Mr. Churchill went to the Admiralty in the 
autumn of 191 1, shortly before the Agadir question 
was explained by the Foreign Secretary to the House. 
We now know why Mr. Churchill was sent at that 
anxious time to take charge of the navy. Bit by 



328 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

bit the truth leaks out. A Coalition Government has 
taken the place of the Liberal Government, and Mr. 
Balfour has replaced Mr. Churchill at the Admiralty. 
Now that the latter is free of direct responsibility 
for naval policy he has told his constituents in Dun- 
dee a bit of history. Indeed, at a meeting there on 
June 5th, 19 1 5, Mr. Churchill, Intentionally or unin- 
tentionally, let a Cabinet cat out of the bag — a cat 
too which explains a lot of the spilt milk and broken 
crockery of the year 19 12. 

Speaking at the Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, on June 
5th, 19 1 5, Mr. Churchill said: 

" I was sent to the Admiralty in 191 1, after the Agadir 
crisis had nearly brought us into war, and I was sent with 
the express duty laid upon me by the Prime Minister to 
put the fleet in a state of instant and constant readiness for 
war in case we were attacked by Germany." 

Such a statement made three years too late, proves 
how utterly helpless the House of Commons and the 
electors are to save their country from the horrors 
of war. 

In the debate on the Naval Estimates 19 14, Mr. 
Philip Snowden referred to something Lord Welby 
said earlier in that year. Lord Welby was once at 
the head of the Treasury; he had held the highest 
position in the Civil Service of Britain and was re- 
garded as a great financial authority. Lord Welby 
said: 

" We are in the hands of an organization of crooks. 
They are politicians, generals, manufacturers of armaments, 
and journalists. All of them are anxious for unlimited ex- 
penditure, and go on inventing scares to terrify the public 
and to terrify Ministers of the Crown." 



BELGIAN NEUTRALITY AGAIN 329 

Lord Welby knew what he was talking about. 
" Crooks " is the precise word, the accurate, the in- 
spired word. No other word would quite meet the 
occasion. 

In support of what has been written on the Treaty 
of 1839 another paragraph or two must be added. 
Since the war began some more information has been 
gained. 

It is said that the neutrality of Belgium was the 
one sole question which kept the Cabinet together 
on August 2nd ; when that treaty was made the casus 
belli. Then those Ministers who had handed in 
their resignations withdrew them, — excepting, of 
course. Lord Morley and Mr. Burns. This view of 
Cabinet action is now put forward by many writers, 
but it does not explain the strange position of the 
men in the Cabinet who protested against the policy 
which enmeshed the Government in the Continental 
System. The critical day for the Cabinet was Au- 
gust 2nd, the day after Sir Edward Grey informed 
the French Ambassador at London that, " Germany 
had explained that she was not In a position to reply " 
to the question of observing Belgian neutrality, and 
that he would " propose to his colleagues that he 
should state that it (the British Fleet) will oppose 
the passage of the Straits of Dover by the German 
Fleet, or, if the German Fleet should pass through, 
will oppose any demonstration on the French coasts." 
The French Ambassador sent that information to M. 
Vivlani, the President of the French Council, on Au- 
gust 1st, the day before the British Cabinet gave its 
sanction to the proposal, and twenty-four hours be- 
fore Sir Edward Grey notified the Cabinet that Ger- 



330 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

many was not In a position to reply to the question 
about the neutrality of Belgium. 

This method of conducting the affairs of Britain 
was perhaps quite in order, and a Cabinet which was 
left in the dark about so many diplomatic negotia- 
tions perhaps felt grateful for any second-hand in- 
formation which happened to come its way. Never- 
theless we are told the crisis was bridged by the 
Treaty of 1839, and uneasy spirits were soothed by 
the mention of the holy relic upon which presumably 
some sanguine statesmen thought no Government 
would lay sacrilegious hands. What the revolters 
In the Cabinet thought of the Foreign Minister on 
August 2nd, when he got them to consent to the pro- 
posal of naval aid to France before the violation of 
Belgian neutrality by Germany took place, and what 
they now think since they have had time to read the 
diplomatic correspondence, would be of deep inter- 
est to those who do not accept the view that making 
the neutrality of Belgium the casus belli was the one 
sole reason for the withdrawal of all but two resig- 
nations on August 2nd. How can any Minister say 
he was satisfied to remain in the Cabinet for that 
reason when he consented to naval aid to France be- 
fore Germany invaded Belgium? 

Consider the position of Mr. Lloyd George who, 
in an interview published in a magazine, explained 
the attitude he and several of his colleagues took up 
before the war broke out. He said: 

" This I know is true — after the guarantee given that 
the German fleet would not attack the Coast of France or 
annex any French territory, I would not have been a party 
to a declaration of war had Belgium not been invaded ; and 



A FLIMSY PRETEXT 331 

I think I can say the same thing for most, if not all, of 
my colleagues." 

Whether the guarantee referred to by Mr. Lloyd 
George carried any weight with Sir Edward Grey 
or Mr. Asquith is another matter, but it should be 
borne in mind that Belgium was not invaded by Ger- 
many on August 2nd. Anticipation may be wise as 
a policy, but it can never constitute realization. In- 
vasion of Belgium on August 4th could not justify 
Mr. Lloyd George's anticipation of August 2nd. 

The National Review said several members of the 
Cabinet on August 2nd " were casting about for a 
life-buoy to save their righteous souls, which was 
ultimately provided by Belgium." Now the Times, 
that mirror of Foreign Office reflections, tells us 
" even had Germany not invaded Belgium, honour 
and interest would have united us with France." 
The " imperious reason of self-interest " was our 
motive in all connected with the Treaty of 1839. 
Would it not have been the better policy from the 
first to tell the people the bald truth ? Now that the 
Tory press is bent on mining the neutrality trench 
in which Mr. Lloyd George and his colleagues took 
cover, their position becomes every day more unten- 
able and stupid. 

No, the neutrality of Belgium will not serve for 
a pretext, since those who do not take every minis- 
terial utterance as gospel have taken the trouble to 
study all the diplomatic correspondence and the his- 
tory of treaties. It is all very well and good for us 
to be told day after day that Britain must fight this 
war to a successful finish, but the more the British 
people are told they must shut their minds to all 



332 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Inquiries as to the real causes of the war, the more 
will great sections of them feel disposed to get all 
the Information on the question they can gather. 
Already the effects of the fatal policy of secrecy and 
shuffle are evident all over the country. Newspapers 
cry out to the Government to be frank and tell the 
people the truth about the conduct of the war and 
what the real position Is after many months of blood- 
shed; they complain that the seeming apathy of the 
masses is caused by the policy of withholding news 
that the enemy and neutrals possess. But no one is 
bold enough to attribute the apathy to another cause 
— anterior and more grave — to the amazing 
inconsistencies and suppressions In the diplomatic cor- 
respondence and the stupid stories faked up in cer- 
tain newspapers about the neutrality of Belgium. 
The masses read; and many of the papers issued to 
Socialists and Labourites are singularly well-in- 
formed and deal week after week most ably with the 
questions which forced the Government into a Con- 
tinental war. It Is worse than folly to try to Ignore 
these facts, for If our masses are to be organized 
along with industries to bring the conflict to a success- 
ful and speedy end, the Government should seek now 
to remove the suspicion and distrust which lie down 
deep in the minds of the more intelligent workers. 
That the two great parties should tell different 
stories of our participation in the struggle is not the 
way to Induce the workers of the country to show 
any real enthusiasm for the war. Mr. Bonar Law 
on August 2nd, in his letter to Mr. Asquith, said 
nothing about the neutrality of Belgium; the support 
of the Opposition wa^ given " in support of France 
and Russia." Lord Lansdowne said " we had to 



DEALINGS WITH BELGIUM 333 

consider our obligations to France, by which we were 
bound." 

Leaving the Invasion of Belgium out of the ques- 
tion for the moment, how can the Government con- 
tinue to base its case on the violation of the Treaty 
of 1839? We know now how the treaty came Into 
existence, we also know what happened In 1870 
to preserve the Integrity of Belgium. The full story 
of our military negotiations with Belgium In the 
spring of 1906, the Interview of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Bridges with General Jungbluth in April, 19 12, and 
the report of Baron Greindl from Berlin (where he 
was Belgian Ambassador) to the Belgian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, Is now known. It is an ugly 
story and none of its worst features are removed by 
denials of complicity published from our Foreign 
Office nor Is Its brutality effaced by the silly ex- 
planations sent out by the Belgian authorities In 
March, 191 5. No one who has studied Foreign 
Office methods will at this time of day rest content 
with the phrase " not binding." That military at- 
taches may act as did Lieutenant-Colonels Barnardis- 
ton and Bridges, with the Foreign Office ready to re- 
pudiate responsibility when the work of its military 
attache Is discovered, — and at the same time ready 
to benefit so long as the secret Is kept, — will not 
deceive those who desire straightforward methods 
in Foreign Affairs. When the Belgian General 
Jungbluth was told by Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges 
that Britain was ready to land a force of 160,000 
in Belgium, General Jungbluth objected and said that 
the consent of the Belgian Government was necessary. 
To this Lieut.-Colonel Bridges said that he knew 
that, "but that since we (Belgium) were not able 



334 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

to prevent the Germans from passing through our 
country — England would have landed her troops in 
Belgium under all circumstances {en tout etat de 
cause) y 

Numbers of British and Belgian soldiers of high 
rank know that ever since Algeciras, since January, 
1906, the British and Belgian armies had looked to 
one another for common defence. The Belgians 
looked for 160,000 British soldiers to land at Ant- 
werp where they would be met by a quarter of a mil- 
lion Belgians. The General Staffs of both armies 
had long consulted on the problem and the plans. 
The Government not only failed to carry out its 
pledge contained in No. 155 (British White Paper), 
it failed utterly to keep the military understanding 
of the General Staffs. Belgium was thrown away. 
And when the day of reckoning comes it will be found 
that Britain will have to answer for broken pledges 
as terrible to Belgium as Germany's violation of a 
treaty. 

While we are engaged in our usual business of 
lecturing other countries, belligerents and neutrals, 
on international law and the sanctity of treaties, we 
have no time to examine our own position. Indeed 
it would be difficult to find it now under the slather 
of whitewash poured on by the unctuous " leaders 
of thought " since the war began. But it may be 
said, no question in the history of politics was started 
with so little knowledge as this one of the neutrality 
of Belgium. We have not shone as historians. The 
best said and written in our favour has been scrappy, 
vamped, and partial. The speeches of statesmen 
on the question have been remarkable for what was 
not said ; and the surge of sentimentality which arose 



WHAT DISRAELI THOUGHT 335 

from the story of atrocities had no bearing on the 
Treaty of 1839. The sudden change In the Lib- 
eral press on the question, which amounted to a com- 
plete volte-face In twenty-four hours, was paralleled 
only by the action of the Cabinet which made the 
neutrality of Belgium a casus belli on the day naval 
aid was granted to France. The Importance given 
to the Belgian treaty In the first week of August was 
quite modern, Indeed suddenly new. It was not al- 
ways held so precious. And now that the walls of 
our towns are plastered with copies of the signatures 
of the Powers who signed the treaty, one wonders 
what is the position of Palmerston In his grave, if 
any Jingo occurrence can disturb him now. In 
1855, when Disraeli proposed the neutrality of the 
Danubian Principalities, he said : 

" There certainly are instances in Europe of such propo- 
sitions, and it has been agreed by treaty that Belgium and 
Switzerland should be declared neutral; but I am not dis- 
posed to attach very much importance to such engagements, 
for the history of the world shows that when a quarrel 
arises and a nation makes war and thinks it advantageous 
to traverse with its army such neutral territory, the declara- 
tions of neutrality are not apt to be very religiously re- 
spected." 

Palmerston when he spoke no doubt knew the real 
value of the treaty to which he had put his name. 
He was not disposed to attach very much importance 
to such engagements. What action would he have 
taken early last August? When Germany did not 
very " religiously " respect the neutrality of Belgium 
and thought It advantageous to traverse neutral ter- 
ritory, would Palmerston have wasted time lecturing 
Germany on the sanctity of treaties? Not likely. 



2,z6 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

/ The Times, sick, presumably, of the slavering 
• about Belgian neutrality, reminded us, on March 
8th, 1915, that: 

" There are still, it seems, some Englishmen and English- 
women who greatly err as to the reasons that have forced 
England to draw the sword. They know that it was Ger- 
many's flagrant violation of Belgian neutrality which filled 
the cup of her indignation and made her people insist upon 
war {sic!). They do not reflect that our honour and our 
interest must have compelled us to join France and Russia 
even if Germany had scrupulously respected the rights of 
her small neighbours, and had sought to hack her way into 
France through the Eastern fortresses." 

It is all very painful controversy, for it casts a slur 
on the statements of the Prime Minister and the 
Foreign Secretary when they replied to questions 
in the House before the war, and said we were under 
no obligation to go to war in the interests of France 
and Russia. 

In the 'eighties the Treaty of 1839 was subjected 
to examination, at home and abroad, and it was then 
widely known that it was no complete guarantee. 
One Belgian War Minister, General Brailmont, de- 
cided that Belgium must arm and look to her own 
defences for securing her neutrality. A British 
Ministerial organ, the Standard, in 1880 had told 
Belgium not to rely on British assistance in all cases. 
Probably the termination of the treaties of 1870 
made the Belgian authorities think seriously of their 
future position. That the efficacy of the Treaty of 
1839 was generally doubted — after the lapse of 
the treaties made for the period of the Franco-Ger- 
man War — is plain, and in 1887, when another war 
cloud loomed up, the Standard came out with a lead- 



THEN AND NOW 337 

Ing article on the question. It was, however, a let- 
ter signed " Diplomaticus," published by the Stand- 
ard, Fehvud.Yy 4th, 1887, which raised the question 
then, and caused the discussion which followed in 
several of the chief London dailies and weeklies. 
The Standard was then regarded to be the official 
organ of the Government (Tory). The letter is as 
follows : 

" To the Editor of the Standard. 

"Sir: Military experts are of the opinion that France 
has spent so much money, and spent it so well during the 
last sixteen years in providing herself with a fresh military 
frontier, that a direct advance by the German armies into 
France, past the new fortresses and forts that have been 
erected and linked together, would be, even if a possible, 
a very hazardous undertaking. 

" But if Germany was, or considered itself to be, pro- 
voked into a struggle of life and death with France would 
Prince Bismarck, with the mighty forces he can set in mo- 
tion, consent to be baffled by the artificial obstacles to which 
I have alluded, so long as there existed a natural and un- 
defended road by which he could escape from his embar- 
rassment? Such a road or way out does exist. It lies on 
Belgian territory. But the neutrality of Belgium is pro- 
tected by European guarantee and England is one of the 
guarantors. In 1870 Earl Granville, then at the head of 
the English Foreign Office, alive to this danger, promptly 
and wisely bound England to side with France if Prussia 
violated Belgian territory and with Prussia if France did so. 

" Would Lord Salisbury act prudently to take upon him- 
self a similar engagement in the event of a fresh conflict 
between these two countries? It is for Englishmen to 
answer the question. But it seems to me, as one not indif- 
ferent to the greatness and interests of England, that such 
a course at the present moment would be unwise to the last 
degree. However much England might regret the invasion 



338 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

of Belgian territory by either party to the struggle, she 
could not take part with France against Germany (even if 
Germany were to seek to turn the French flank by pouring 
its armies through the Belgian Ardennes) without utterly 
vitiating and destroying the main purpose of English policy 
all over the world. 

" But it will be asked, must not England honour its sig- 
nature and be faithful to its public pledges? I reply that 
your Foreign Minister ought to be equal to the task of 
meeting this objection without committing England to w^ar. 
The temporary use of a right of way is something different 
from a permanent and wrongful possession of territory; and 
surely England would be easily able to obtain from Prince 
Bismarck ample and adequate guarantees that, at the close 
of the conflict, the territory of Belgium should remain intact 
as before? 

" You will see, sir, that I raise, in a very few words, an 
exceedingly important question. It is for the English peo- 
ple to perpend and pronounce. But it is high time they 
reflected on it. 

" I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

" DiPLOMATICUS." 

The leading article refers to its correspondent as 
one " who speaks with high authority," and after 
setting out the military positions of France and Ger- 
many it draws the following conclusion: 

" Would the violation of Belgian territory, whether by 
Germany or France, be such an injury to our honour and 
such a blow to our interests? It might be so in certain 
circumstances, and it would assuredly be so if it involved 
a permanent violation of the independence of Belgium. 
But, as ' Diplomaticus ' ingeniously suggests, there is all the 
difference in the world between the momentary use of a 
* right of way,' even if the use of the right of way be in a 
sense wrongful, and the appropriation of the ground cov- 



WHOSE OX IS GORED? 339 

ered by the right of way. We trust that both Germany and 
France would refrain even from this minor trespass. But 
if they did not? If one or other were to say to England, 
' All the military approaches to France and Germany have 
been closed, and only neutral approaches lie open to us. 
This state of things is not only detrimental but fatal to our 
military success, and it has arisen since the treaty guaranteed 
the sacredness of the only roads of which we can now avail 
ourselves. We will, as a fact, respect the independence of 
Belgium, and we will give you the most solemn and binding 
guarantees that at the end of the conflict Belgium shall be 
as free and independent as before,' if Germany (and of 
course our hypothesis applies also to France) were to use 
this language — though we trust there will be no occasion 
for it — we cannot doubt what would be the wise and 
proper course for England to pursue, and what would be 
the answer of the English Government. England does not 
wish to shirk its true responsibilities. But it would be 
madness for us to incur or to assume responsibilities un- 
necessarily when to do so would manifestly involve our par- 
ticipation in a tremendous war." 

That was the official Conservative opinion In 
1887 ; but when, in 1914, Germany did just what was 
suggested by " Diplomaticus " and the Standard, 
Liberal statesmen were mortally shocked, and ad- 
vised Belgium to decline Germany's proposal. Must 
It be said that Belgium strained at a gnat and swal- 
lowed a camel? Of course her diplomatic honour 
Is Intact, though little else seems to be left at present. 
But whose opinion will guide the people In the years 
to come? Whose counsel will be worth heeding 
when the next war cloud casts Its gloom over Eu- 
rope? Statesmen and " leaders of thought " give us 
no hope. Only statesmen and diplomatists could 



340 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

make such a mess of affairs as we see now in Eu- 
rope. Certain it is, if the people had had control 
in July there would have been no war. 

How to avert another such cataclysm is the ques- 
tion which must concern us now; and, so that we 
shall know what steps to take to make another such 
war improbable, we must learn the whole truth of 
our long connection with international militarism. 
We cannot crush Germany, we cannot destroy Prus- 
sian militarism, we cannot liberalize Russia, we can- 
not make the Powers disarm, we cannot affect the 
royal and republican despotisms of the Continent, no 
matter how great a victory we achieve. And the 
greatest victory to British arms will serve no demo- 
cratic purpose unless the British people now firmly 
make up their minds to set their own house in order 
first. That is a matter they can turn their attention 
to without waiting for the war to end. First things 
first. 



CHAPTER XV 

ON BROTHERLY TERMS 

I THINK I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid 

and self-contain'd, 
I stand and look at them long and long. 
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, 
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania 

of owning things, 
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thou- 
sands of years ago, 
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. 

— Walt Whitman. 

" The Devil would have counselled neutrality, but 
Christ has put His sword into our hand." These 
words were spoken by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll in 
calling on Mr. Lloyd George to address a large gath- 
ering of Nonconformists In London. The sentence 
has a familiar ring about it. Kaiser, Czar, and Em- 
peror, have, at moments during this war, been under 
the same delusion. And ever since the first war, some 
warrior or medicine man, In want of an excuse, has 
said the same thing of his deity or totem. Yet, 
after hundreds and hundreds of years of " Christ 
putting His sword Into our hands," war abates not 
one jot, nor do the nations realize that " all they that 
take the sword shall perish with the sword." 

The meeting began with references to God and 

341 



342 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

Christ, but before Mr. Lloyd George got half way 
through his speech he delivered an attack on the 
Beatitudes as if they were tariff-reform texts. 
" Now there are men who maintain that war is not 
justifiable under any conditions," he said. " May I 
just say one or two words about that? It is not the 
creed, as your chairman reminded us, of the Puritan 
Fathers." No one will quarrel with that. The 
speaker was quite right; it was not the creed of the 
Puritan Fathers. It was the creed of Jesus. But 
Mr. Lloyd George went further, and said, " I main- 
tain it is not the principle of the Christian faith." 
Is that true ? Would it be right to say that men who 
maintain that war is not justifiable under any condi- 
tions are not Christians? How far does Mr. Lloyd 
George's reasoning carry us in that direction? How 
can such men be Christians? Christians not only 
make war, whether " justifiable " or not, but this 
Christian State as a rule spends nearly half its reve- 
nue on the weapons of war. 

When Mr. Lloyd George confessed to that great 
gathering of Nonconformists that he, " never read 
a saying of the Master's which would condemn a man 
for striking a blow for right, justice, or the protec- 
tion of the weak," he revealed a peculiar misconcep- 
tion of the Master's teaching. It was an amazing 
confession to make, but he is a man of great courage, 
and he made it. Strange as it may appear, the Non- 
conformist audience agreed, for the newspaper tells 
us his statement was greeted with " Hear, hear." 
The revelations may explain to some extent why there 
are so many empty pews in the churches. 

What particular precept the Christian faith is 
based upon seems to depend on the circumstances 



THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 343 

In which you are placed when it is convenient to 
think about it. Passive resistance, for instance, at a 
time like this would be party folly. When it is a 
question of an education rate, imposed by a Con- 
servative Government, then, presumably, the creed 
of the Puritan Fathers must not be applied. The 
difficulties of the argument lie in attempting to apply 
a precept of Jesus to a political party; or, what for 
the time being is the same thing, the State. It al- 
ways has been difficult to make the precepts of Jesus 
meet the exigency of the State. His precepts were 
for the individual; nations and states concerned him 
scarcely at all. To quote from a chapter in 
Matthew, presumably overlooked by Mr. Lloyd 
George, will be enough to prove how absurd it is 
to attempt to apply the precepts of Jesus to the State : 

" But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil ; but whoso- 
ever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the 
other also. 

" Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 

" But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
which despitefuUy use you, and persecute you: 

" That ye may be the children of your Father which is 
in heaven: for he maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on 
the good, and sendeth the rain on the just and on the unjust." 

Not practicable? Then is it not time for us to 
leave Jesus out of our party speeches, and have done 
with cant? What prompted Emerson to say, " God 
will not have His work made manifest by cowards " ? 
Perhaps it was speeches of the sort delivered at the 
City Temple. For if the precepts of Jesus guided 
statesmen and the Nonconformists, the meeting 



344 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

should have resolved Itself into prayer for all who 
despltefully used them. But the meeting not being 
convened for that purpose, such a suggestion would 
have been most inappropriate. 

"O ye of little faith!" 

Moreover, is there in these days any faith at all 
in the precepts of Jesus? Nationally, none what- 
ever. The State is fast absorbing the man; and that 
is bad for Jesus. It is, however, a pity Mr. Lloyd 
George, when he was discussing with the Mohamme- 
dan gentleman referred to in his speech, did not bor- 
row a copy of the Koran and turn to the 17th chap- 
ter, where It is set down, " Woe be unto you, for 
that which ye impiously utter concerning God ! since 
whoever is in heaven and on earth is subject unto 
him." But the Scriptures have troubled many 
statesmen, long before this war began. Cromwell 
not always found the texts fitting in with his actions ; 
and, no doubt, it was a sore point with him that Jesus 
was so persistently literal. Perhaps the same diffi- 
culty presented itself to Mr. Lloyd George. He 
" never read a saying of the Master's which would 
condemn a man for striking a blow for right, justice, 
or the protection of the weak." That may be, but 
it is not the point. The point is, he never read a 
saying of the Master's that counselled him to strike 
a blow for right, justice, or the protection of the 
weak. Mr. Lloyd George might have read, " Fear 
not them which kill the body." 

So long as men give an interpretation of Jesus 
which fits their own desires, and do not accept his 
precepts literally, there will be wars, injustice, wrong, 
and weak people. The way to end all the misery, 



WHAT BENEFIT FROM WAR? 345 

according to Jesus, is, " Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
God, and His Justice." This no state can do. It 
is for each individual to seek the Kingdom; and he 
alone can seek it, no one' can seek it for him. Strik- 
ing blows can bring no relief; blows only serve to 
perpetuate the strife. Surely the history of the 
world proves that. What did all the blows struck 
by Israel serve? Why, Jesus scarcely referred to 
them. Count the national blows struck in our own 
land since we came from Schleswig to Ebbsfleet, or 
since the repulse at Abermenai, and what have all 
the wars, and all the blows struck in all the wars, 
done for maiikind? Think of the wrong, injustice, 
and the oppression, practised in every reign since Ag- 
ricola, and then measure how much nearer we are to 
the ideal. Wars breed wars. Blows cause anger, 
bitter memories, revanche. After two thousand 
years of wars in every clime under the sun, man still 
suffers all the afflictions known to his race since 

" Kaiumers 
Had not a foe, save one, a hideous demon." 

Some one has said history does not repeat Itself; 
nevertheless, the histories of long ago present op- 
pressions and agitations, injustices and wrongs, wars 
and settlements, with a likeness which reminds us 
strongly of those we see now in Europe. Any one 
who will take up Thucydides again, and read through 
those wonderful pages, will lay the book down with 
the sense of having read something by a modern au- 
thor recounting twentieth century events ; the treaties, 
speeches, and wars of the days of Alciblades seem 
not to have been so long ago. Glance at an old map 
of Greece, and the Archipelego, and then place be- 



346 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

side it a map of modern Greece, then reflect on the 
causes of the ancient wars, and think of the blows 
struck for right and justice! " Let a ruler base his 
government upon virtuous principles, and he will be 
like the pole star, which remains steadfast in its place, 
while all the host of stars turn towards it," was said 
by " the greatest personage of the largest empire." 
Those words were spoken five hundred years before 
the birth of Jesus; but in China since the time of 
Confucius there have been wars enough to bring 
about a great millennium, if all the blows on one 
side were really struck for right and justice. And 
what have all the wars done for China? Think of 
the tramping feet which have passed across this 
hemisphere in all the thousands of years, and count 
a blow for every soldier, and what enduring good has 
been done? Count a tear for every blow, and a 
drop of blood for every soldier, and all the rivers 
of blood and tears have not washed away the wrongs 
that men have suffered for. 

The weapons of war are changed, but the heart 
and soul of men and women remain the same in woe, 
and pain, and longing for love and rest. The plaint 
of long ago was sung in the same sad key we hear 
to-day. The soldier, the soldier's wife, and the 
soldier's child, are rewarded, by those who send them 
all their misery, not much better than they were in 
the days of the House of Chow. The ballads of 
the Shi-king tell us that much: 

" Alone the russet pear-tree grows, 

With fruit upon it fair to see. 
Kings' service knows not speedy close; 

Day in, day out, 'tis long to me. 
The year is fast receding, O; 



"IS THIS CHRISTIANITY?" 347 

My woman's heart is bleeding, O; 
My soldier rest is needing, O." 

There was, however, something deeper, something 
finer, in the feeling in their soldiers' songs than we 
get from most of the war poets of these days. The 
yearning for a higher vocation which this little bal- 
lad throws out is worthy of imitation : 

"What plant is now not sallow? 

What day its march can spare? 
What mortal but must toil and moil 

Here, there, and everywhere? 

What plant is now not sombre? 

What mortal undistraught? 
Poor troopers, we alone of men 

Are less than human thought. 

Not unicorns, not tigers. 

Why haunt we the wild waste? 
Poor troopers, night nor morn can we 

The sweets of leisure taste. 

Leave to the long-tailed foxes 

To haunt the sombre grass. 
Along the king's highway should we 

In our light waggons pass." 

It was weary work then to be torn from the high- 
way of life, and toil and moil in the service of dy- 
nasts who were " served by the field " but digged not 
in it. It is weary work now, and dynasts of all kinds 
seem to have no end. Yes, hope of wars ending 
vanishes when one reads of meetings such as that 
held at the City Temple. And Nonconformity will 
suffer much, for men will say, " What is there then in 



348 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

the Idea of the Fatherhood of God and the Brother- 
hood of Man? " Men will ask themselves whether 
a religion that can only offer war such as that now 
waged on the Continent, for the solution of wrongs 
and oppressions, is a religion worth maintaining any 
longer. 

It must not be imagined that this struggle reflects 
the true mind of the people. It should be remem- 
bered that a great change was taking place in the 
minds of workers in all lands. Great bodies of men 
were no longer content to let politicians do all their 
thinking for them; they were reading literature un- 
known to their fathers. Their outlook on life was 
changing, and some fairer vision for those who la- 
bour and are heavy laden was touching their souls 
with hope. Now the lesson of this awful war, with 
its crushing burden of taxation, the desolated homes, 
will eat deeply into their minds, and turn them — 
where? Back again to the belief in the Fatherhood 
of God and the Brotherhood of Man? May not 
many turn to Swinburne and say with him : 

" Though before Thee the throned Cytharean 

Be fallen, and hidden her head, 
Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, 

Thy dead shall go down to the dead." 

When our religious and political leaders bow down 
before the god of battles, and approve such state- 
ments as " Christ has put His sword into our hands," 
what chance is there for the Galilean? None what- 
ever. Why hold the Kaiser up to scorn and ridicule 
for uttering nonsense about the vieux Gott boche, as 
our witty French reviewers say? The chairman of 
the City Temple meeting might have been full- 



THE SWORD OF THE LORD 349 

blooded about It, and have revived the spirit of 1525. 
Thomas Muntzer put it this way: 

"Arise! Fight the battle of the Lord! On! on! on! 
Now is the time; the wicked tremble when they hear you. 
Be pitiless! Heed not the groans of the impious! Rouse 
up the towns and villages. Above all rouse up the miners 
of the mountains. On! on! on! while the fire is burning! 
On, while the hot ground is yet reeking with the slaughter! 
Give the fire no time to go out; the sword no time to cool. 
Kill the proud ones; while one of them lives you will not 
be free from the fear of man! While they reign over you 
it is no use to talk of God." 

Thomas Muntzer called himself a servant of God 
against the wicked. Recite the proclamation of 
Muntzer to a Brotherhood meeting and the men 
would scorn to accept it as coming from a man who, 
at any time since Calvary, called himself a Christian. 
Yet there was a conflict of ideas in the Middle Ages, 
and there were men who preferred pestilence to war. 
Martin Luther, for instance: 

" War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict hu- 
manity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys 
families. Any scourge, in fact, is preferable to it. Famine 
and pestilence become as nothing in comparison with it. 
Pestilence is the least evil of the three, and 'twas therefore 
David chose it, willing rather to fall into the hands of God 
than into those of pitiless man." 

It destroys religion, and it destroys states. What 
will there be left after the next Treaty of Peace is 
signed? Perhaps some Winwood Reade will come 
along, and tell us this war has done more for the 
progress of mankind than all the other wars lumped 
together. Might not such a man say, this war 



350 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

proves beyond all else that Nietzsche was right when 
he said, " A good war halloweth every cause," and 
that, "The only Christian died on the cross?" 
What if another Marx should rise and cry, *' Work- 
ers of Europe ! this war has taught you what can be 
done by war. Take the lesson home to yourselves. 
Rise ! against your religious and political dynasts. 
Only the devil will counsel neutrality. Christ has put 
His sword into our hands!" A syndicalist more 
energetic than Sorel might appear and teach the 
wealth-producers the efficacy of organized force to 
overthrow organized capital. It would not be dif- 
ficult for a man who knows something of the history 
of states, to present evidence which would impress 
men and women who have toiled and moiled to get 
a bit of a home together from the savings of starva- 
tion wages, that, generation after generation they 
in the main provide for munitions of war, and give 
their best flesh and bone to the Moloch of Nobel, 
Krupp, Schneider, and Vickers, to win justice for 
states, — without any State ever giving a passing 
thought to their claim to individual justice. 

What contempt could be poured by a new Lassalle 
on the catchwords of statesmen : Prestige ! Balance 
of Power ! Triple Entente ! State honour ! State jus- 
tice ! How easily he would convince his audience 
that all these terms are the gibberish of State sor- 
cery: 

" Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, 

Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, 

For a charm of powerful trouble; 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble." 

Suppose it were shown that, since the revolution 
of 1689, the debt of this country incurred by wars, 



"LET SATAN HAVE A TRY" 351 

which at the end of this war might stand at not far 
short of £2,500,000,000, all spent in upholding 
prestige, honour, and justice, had not brought jus- 
tice to a single individual; would not the workers be- 
gin to think it high time for Government to shape its 
policy along the less expensive lines of peace, and 
give its undivided attention to removing all the in- 
justice and misery which afflict the people in times of 
good trade, in times of bad trade, in times of war, 
and in times of peace? This war we are told will 
win for the oppressed of Russia the freedom they 
have dreamed of ever since a Romanoff ruled over 
the Slav race; that is to be one of the blessings of 
the war. But no one has predicted freedom from 
economic slavery for the workers of Britain. The 
menace of Prussian militarism is to be driven away 
from France ; but no statesman here says the menace 
of privilege is to be driven away from the homes of 
our people. We are to wipe out the stain of Prus- 
sian cruelty in Belgium; but when shall we wipe out 
the stain of British landlordism? Blood in gallons, 
and money In millions, must be spent in protecting 
the rights of small nations; but Government makes 
no suggestion for safeguarding the rights of English- 
men. Any cause but that of man! Any duty but 
the nearest ! Might not some new Vogt or Biichner, 
in regarding the ruins of the Christian era, say, 
" Well, if this is the best the faith of the Puritan Fa- 
thers can do for mankind, let Satan have a try." 

The Christianity of 1866 and 1870 produced the 
Biichners and the Vogts. And what did they desire 
for their fellows ? Freedom ! They saw what they 
thought to be the failure of Christianity to bring hap- 
piness and abundance to those who produce. May 



352 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

not the latter-day Vogts be saying, " If this chaos of 
bloodshed, poverty, and grime, is all that Christian 
civilization after two thousand years of endeavour 
can do, then let us not only dismantle Rheims, but 
demolish every architectural and rubrical device that 
ever symbolized the Cross!" How deep the 
thought of German humanists sunk into the minds 
of British workingmen, during that period when our 
socialists of the Marxian school were introduced to 
the writings of Continental atheists, only those who 
have closely watched these tendencies can say. It 
may, however, be safely imputed that speeches such 
as those delivered by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll and 
Mr. Lloyd George, have done more to turn thou- 
sands of workers to the writings of men like Vogt, 
with their biting sarcasm, than all the persuasive elo- 
quence of the Ingersolls and Bradlaughs. 

" Theism or belief in a personal God leads, as all history 
clearly shows, to Monarchism and priestly rule; Pantheism 
or belief in an all-pervading God leads, where it is in the 
ascendency, to contempt of the senses, denial of the Ego, to 
absorption in God, and to a state of stagnation. Atheism 
or Philosophical Monism alone leads to freedom, to intelli- 
gence, to progress, to due recognition of man — in a word, 
to Humanism." 

Biichner has his thousands of adherents in our land 
to-day. And what has the creed of our Puritan Fa- 
thers done to offer a just alternative to Humanism? 
Will this war help the descendants of the Puritan 
Fathers to stem the rising tide of atheistical culture 
and the desire for a Marxian revolution? Has 
Christianity, as the pound-a~week man sees it, pointed 
to freedom, to intelligence, to due recognition of 



AN INSPIRING VISION 353 

man? Will the worship of the god of battles woo 
men to the precepts of the Galilean? Not likely. 
Never has war drawn a single soul to the cause of 
Jesus. 

" 'Tis time new hopes should animate the world, new light 
Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weighed down so long, forgotten so long." 

What new hope of justice has Christianity given 
to the race weighed down so long? A new hope 
was born at Nazareth, but ever since that time Chris- 
tianity has seemed to do everything in its power to 
prevent that hope touching the soul of men. It was 
a new hope: " Your heavenly Father knoweth that 
ye have need of all these things." No one ever 
gave to the race of man so great a hope as that. An 
All-Father who knoweth the needs of all His chil- 
dren, is the biggest conception of God ever presented 
to man. From it, justice to all His creatures flows 
spontaneously. It is without limit of race, colour, 
or creed. It is fundamental, universal, and eternal. 
What has been done by Christianity to make that 
conception a real basis for existence? No Christian 
should dare scoff at atheistic or humanistic aspiration 
until he can translate the Galilean's conception of 
God into a leading to freedom, intelligence, progress, 
and due recognition of man. The tendency to God 
indicated by Browning in Paracelsus, is what man is 
yearning to understand : 

" But in completed man begins anew 
A tendency to God. 

I never fashioned out a fancied good 
Distinct from man's: a service to be done, 



354 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

A glory to be ministered unto 

With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn 

From labouring in his behalf; a strength 

Denied that might avail him. I cared not 

Lest his success ran counter to success 

Elsewhere; for God is glorified in man." 

We have time day after day to recount the hor- 
rors of war's excesses, the atrocities of German sol- 
diers, the starvation of whole provinces, the terrible 
plight of refugees; the world is appalled at the ava- 
lanche of woe. No one remains neutral; waves of 
universal sympathy reach higher and higher; from all 
parts of the globe willing hands send food, raiment, 
and money to procure shelter for the stricken. But 
who remains neutral In the fight against poverty, 
drink, and the myriad atrocities of our economic 
system which are perpetrated year In and year out 
and seldom rouse the affluent out of their pernicious 
apathy? What devil has counselled the neutrality 
of the churches, and held them from turning the 
whole of their attention to a solution of economic 
problems? When will Christ put His sword Into 
the hands of all the clergy to exterminate poverty? 
Without searching the police-court news, or taking 
the trouble to consult the police-courts, any one who 
has lived In any street of any British town could write 
a story of atrocities that ^yould satisfy the cravings 
for horror of any number of folk who now revel In 
the exertions of Britain to chastise the Huns In Bel- 
gium. 

Last night In the street below, two women fought 
like tigers, while a large crowd swayed and twisted 
about their drunken brawl. They were young 
women living In a street not far from the Abbey, 



" CRUSH PRUSSIANISM " 355 

and not more than one hundred yards from the 
Houses of Parliament. They rolled about the 
muddy street, and the traffic was stopped while they 
clawed and smashed each other. The on-lookers 
were in many respects more interesting than the 
combatants: old women, half stupified with drink; 
little children, in rags; blear-eyed men, just tumbled 
out of the pub near by; and, besides, a motley lot of 
decent-looking people from the flats and houses 
who had run out on hearing the screams of the 
women and the shouts of their neighbours. No one 
seemed to care to interfere save one or two inti- 
mates, themselves drunk and quarrelsome. The 
language of the denizens, yelling at new-comers the 
story of the row, was vile; the comment passed on 
the histories of the brawlers was shockingly Rabe- 
laisian. When the women tusselled out of the road, 
into the gutter, and then, with their breast-coverings 
in rags, on to the sidewalk, one bus-driver cried to 
another, "What about the Prussian Hun, eh?" 
Then a policeman came upon the scene, and after 
much difficulty dragged the women off to Rochester 
Row. A clergyman who watched the small crowd 
following the women and the constable pass into the 
gloom, was heard to say, " Terrible neighbourhood 
this; not nearly enough policemen on the beat!" 
And yet war never revealed an atrocity like Tufton 
Street; but the marvel of it is, not that it is so bad, 
rather that it is so good. It is a mystery how in- 
dustrious, decent men and women, can be born and 
bred in that place, but they are; not many, still a few 
rise out of it with a desire for a fuller, sweeter ex- 
istence. 

" War destroys religion," Luther said. Yes, but 



356 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

how often have the devotees themselves been to 
blame for the destruction of their religion? All 
the religions known from Katmandu to Tianahuaco 
that have lost their influence, have suffered because 
the simple original idea has been smothered in the 
embellishments and rituals of their priests. Would 
it be nearer the truth to say, more religions have been 
destroyed by priests than by wars? Who can say? 
Burnouf? Anyway, this must be admitted: priests 
have never been satisfied with the founder's original 
idea. It has been pointed out that wherever a re- 
ligion is practised to-day, the closer it has remained 
to the original idea, the larger and more devout the 
number of its adherents. This cannot be wholly a 
matter of geography and population, for " Chris- 
tianity has penetrated to the uttermost comers of 
the globe." 

" I do not find your Jesus in your Christianity," 
said a Chinese scholar in a lecture on religion; " in- 
deed you scarcely ever mention his name." Was the 
rebuke merited? What are we afraid of? Here, 
in a paper read by thousands of better-class artizans, 
are letters to the editor. One correspondent says, 
*' There is nothing unique or even really new about 
this so-called Christian doctrine. Socrates pro- 
pounded it four hundred and odd years B.C." Thou- 
sands of well-meaning people have the same notion; 
they never get beyond the idea that Jesus was a 
very respectable plagiarist. How often in speaking 
to gatherings of men, on religious and economic sub- 
jects, have the questions taken this line : " Why fol- 
low Jesus, when every religion has had its Jesus, and 
religion does nothing to alter the lot of the poor? " 
or this : " Wouldn't you advise working men to f ol- 



EXTEMPORE SOCIALISM 357 

low Tolstoy rather than Jesus who knew nothing of 
modern conditions of industrialism?" Then think 
of the yearning which prompted this: " Isn't Kropot- 
kin more practical for a pound-a-week man than 
Jesus? " These are only some of the most reason- 
able questions remembered in a long period of lec- 
turing. Millions want to know what Jesus means to 
man. The thousands who tramp day after day, 
year after year, to the mills, factories, shops, and 
offices, of our great towns, want to know if there is 
a better system, one that will put an end to the awful 
war of toil and moil, and leave man to wage the only 
battle the Creator intended his creatures to wage, 
the battle against nature. Who will explain the 
true Jesus to these men? Who will show them the 
plan, the system, the order of existence which he said 
the All-Father meant for His children? It cannot 
be done during a war, but when the Treaty of Peace 
is signed will the churches, editors of rehgious papers, 
statesmen, and " leaders of thought," lapse again 
into the same old weary business of hiding Jesus 
behind a mask of superstition and cover Him with 
the canonicals of an archbishop? Society will need 
a new basis when this war is over. Each day tend- 
encies are shaping into efforts. Already the Gov- 
ernment works along the very socialistic lines it 
poured contempt upon a few years ago. Reversion 
is the dominant note of the period. Swift some 
teachers have been to point the moral of the change 
to many artizans. Statesmen go whither the cur- 
rents take them. Mr. Blatchford says, " If the 
lives of all the citizens belong to the nation the 
property of all the citizens belongs to the nation." 
Will Mr. Lloyd George and Sir W. Robertson NicoU 



358 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

accept that doctrine? Will the author of The New 
Theology accept it? In a hundred ways every week 
the Government is driven along the very path it once 
told the electors to avoid. Amazing revolution 
without agitation ! What is the great force behind 
the Government to-day, rushing it into channels it 
abhorred only seven years ago ? The exigencies 
of an Armageddon? The nation fighting for its ex- 
istence? Whatever the cause of it, more lessons in 
the workableness of the proposals of British social- 
ists have been given by this Government, since the 
end of July, than can be found in all the literature 
of Socialism from Saint-Simon down to Belfort Bax. 
The circumstances demand it? Yes, but it may be 
argued, what is good for the nation in war-time is 
also good for the individuals that comprise the na- 
tion when peace is proclaimed. What reply is to be 
made to that? Mr. Blatchford says, " To claim the 
blood of our young male citizens and to exempt the 
money of non-combatants is to demand that one 
section of the people shall sacrifice themselves to pre- 
serve the wealth and comfort of another section." 
Why Mr. Blatchford should imagine that this is to 
be particularly applied to this war is strange; for 
what else was the upshot of any war, during the past 
century? Were not all recent wars fought by the 
many to protect the privileges of the few? No mat- 
ter how many splendid men of the privileged class 
are giving their lives away in Europe, the great mass 
of the soldiers of Britain are too poor to be citizens. 
Mr. Blatchford says: 

" I hope the workers will refuse to be duped by fine 
phrases and vague promises. I hope they will compel right 



TWO VIEWS OF JUSTICE 359 

honourable gentlemen to grant and make legal the full scale 
of separation allowance and pension before they enlist." 

If all that Mr. Lloyd George claims this war will 
do for the British nation is not utter nonsense and 
sham, then Mr. Blatchford asks not for much, Mr. 
Lloyd George said : 

" Cannot Britain, fighting one of the most chivalrous 
battles the world has ever seen, rely on her children to rally 
to the flag? That is the appeal I make to the young men 
of the Nonconformist churches. . . . Through it all I think 
I can see the hand of justice, more surely and gradual, con- 
sciously but certainly gripping the victory." 

A fine vision! But if after all the wonderful sac- 
rifice the hand of labour should find that it has only 
gripped again the sombre standard of poverty, what 
then? Mr. Blatchford sees something else away on 
the horizon where the dawn of peace must come : 

" This is a great opportunity for the trade unions and 
for the workers. There are plenty of men for the army, 
and there is plenty of money to deal justly with the men 
who go to fight. If the people insist upon justice this war 
will have done more than anything else in our time to help 
the realization of a free and sane Socialism in this country." 

So both Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Blatchford 
are after justice; but when they meet after the war 
to discuss the settlement for the workers of Britain, 
it will be found that their definitions of justice are 
poles apart. Then the big struggle may begin! 
Right honourable gentlemen may quote Mr. Asquith: 

" The great loss of counterbalancing all the apparent 
gains of a reconstruction of society upon what are called 
socialistic lines will be that liberty will be slowly but surely 



36o HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

starved to death, and that with a superficial equality of 
fortunes and conditions, even if that could be attained, we 
should have the most sterilizing despotism that the world 
has ever seen." 

That statement will not suit Mr. Blatchford; not 
by any means. " If the people will only insist upon 
justice," the one says; the other will say, "What is 
justice?" Who then will determine that question? 
No statesman has laid down an acceptable definition 
of justice. The Prime Minister was conscious seven 
years ago that the State had not even approached 
the ideal of justice. He described the position in 
these words : 

" Any one who looks around with unprejudiced eyes at 
the structure of society as it actually is, and realizes, not 
only the enormous disparities in the distribution of material 
comfort and happiness, but the still more striking discrep- 
ancies between opportunity on the one side and talent and 
character on the other, will not only find it difficult to 
reconcile what he sees with even the rudest standard of 
ideal justice, but will be tempted to be amazed at the pa- 
tience, even the inertness, with which the mass of mankind 
acquiesce in what they deem to be their lot. No wonder 
that constant contemplation of and reflection upon such a 
spectacle has driven and continues to drive some of the best 
and finest spirits of our race into moral and intellectual 
revolt." 

The moral and intellectual revolt of the past will 
be a mere gust in comparison with the whirlwind com- 
ing, if something practical is not done very soon after 
the close of this war. It is not fair, not honest in- 
deed, to ask men to lay down their lives for national 
justice unless you are determined to give those who 
live individual justice. The pound-a-week justice to 



WILL LEGISLATORS ACT? 361 

soldiers and sailors and their wives and children is 
not justice; it is only the merest business-like expedi- 
ent for national safety. Justice is something else. 
What did Mr. Asquith imagine " the rudest standard 
for ideal justice " to be when he spoke at Ladybank 
in 1907 ? No one knows. Mr. Asquith has not put 
on record his definition of justice. Before we are 
overtaken by " the most sterilizing despotism that 
the world has ever seen," statesmen must find a defi- 
nition of justice which will be compatible with the 
precepts of the founder of what is called the Chris- 
tian faith; or else both state and religion may go 
down mingling with the debris of war. 

How speedily we are plunged into this calamity. 
Who in June, 19 14, believed we should be calling for 
millions of men to enter the titanic struggle? A 
member of the Government on Sunday, August 2nd, 
said, " No one will ever make me believe we are 
going to war." Up to the last moment it was diffi- 
cult to make some men believe we were in it. The 
time was short, but shorter notice may be given some 
day when an exasperated people decide " to take 
what Government will not give." When that cry 
so long struggling in the throats of patient, inert, ac- 
quiescent labour is at last heard in the land, when 
the shout for justice goes up from an enlightened 
people, will the political parties gather with the 
unanimity which amazed the world when war was de- 
clared on Germany? Will legislators unite to grant 
labour's demand? or unite to deny them the justice 
they deserve? Deserve! the justice which is theirs 
by right; by right, or Christendom is a sham, and the 
Devil has counselled cabinet and church to remain 
neutral to destroy them. The time is fast coming 



362 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

when they must choose. What must they choose? 
Sociahsm or IndivIduaHsm? The former we know, 
the latter has never had a chance; Christianity, so- 
called, killed it. Socialism aims at equality. Indi- 
vidualism at equal rights. Herein lies the colossal 
misconception of the ages; even Nietzsche in Be- 
yond Good and Evil, throwing his javelin at the blun- 
ders of philosophers and religionists, is guilty of 
fundamental error in mistaking equality for equal 
rights. 

Mr. Blatchford writes of a " free and sane Social- 
Ism," but the brand to be fought for may be the 
socialism which will ask that the " property of all 
citizens belongs to the nation." After the steps 
taken by the Government in the direction of Social- 
ism the " great opportunity " will not be frittered 
away by asking for homeopathic doses. How far 
are we now away from state control of all the means 
of production, distribution, and exchange? Flint 
says Socialism, " denies to the Individual any rights 
independent of Society and assigns to Society author- 
ity to do whatever it deems for its own good with 
the persons, faculties, and possessions of individu- 
als." 

It will be the socialism of Mr. Sidney Webb, if it 
be anything at all: 

" The first step must be to rid our minds of the idea that 
there are any such things in social matters as abstract 
rights." 

How far that will go beyond the " free and sane " 
socialism of Mr. Blatchford, may be guessed by those 
who have watched the experiments of the Govern- 
ment. But how will Mr. Webb's idea fit in with the 



THE PURITAN IDEAL 363 

creed of the Puritan Fathers? Green tells us that 
the aim of the Puritan had been to set up a visible 
Kingdom of God upon earth, and that they regarded 
the State primarily as an instrument for securing, by 
moral and religious influences, the social and political 
ends of the Kingdom. This they failed to bring 
about, and it was one of the bitterest disappoint- 
ments of Cromwell's declining years that Puritanism 
had missed its great opportunity. Think of a 
twentieth-century Puritan rising in the House of 
Commons and saying: 

" I well remember I did a little touch upon the Eighty- 
fifth Psalm when I spake unto you in the beginning of this 
Parliament. Which expresseth well what we may say, as 
truly as it was said of old by the Penman of that Psalm! 
The first verse is an acknowledgment to God that * He had 
been favourable unto His land,' and ' brought back the cap- 
tivity of His people ' ; and then how that ' He had pardoned 
all their iniquities and covered all their sin, and taken 
away all His wrath'; and indeed of all these unspeakable 
mercies, blessings, and deliverances out of captivity, pardon- 
ing of national sins and national iniquities. Pardoning, as 
God pardoneth the man He justifieth! . . . And sometimes 
God pardoneth Nations also! . . . He hath given you 
strength to do what you have done! And if God should 
bless you in this work, and make this meeting happy on this 
account, you shall all be called the Blessed of the Lord. 
The generations to come will bless us. You shall be the 
' repairers of breaches, and the restorers of paths to dwell 
in ' ! And if there be any higher work which mortals can 
attain unto in the world, beyond this, I acknowledge my 
ignorance of it." 

The Eighty-fifth Psalm and the fifty-eighth chapter 
of Isaiah. What a strange place — the House of 
Commons ! for Hebrew poetry. 



364 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

" Mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness and 
peace have kissed each other. 

" Truth shall spring out of the earth ; and righteousness 
shall look down from heaven. 

" Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good ; and our 
land shall yield her increase." 

Strange sentiments these for St. Stephen's. May 
our modern Cromwells, when they gather at the 
Meeting to Celebrate the Peace, say, " legislators 
cannot attain to any higher work than repairing the 
breach and restoring paths to dwell in " ? Will they 
say, to quote another passage from the same chapter 
which inspired the old Puritan Father : 

" Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? To loose the 
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let 
the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? " 

Will our legislators succeed where Cromwell 
failed? Cromwell, if things had gone right with 
him, meant justice. Isaiah meant justice. 

" Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are 
Cffisar's; and unto God the things that are God's." 

That is the fundamental of Justice which Jesus 
gave to the world. Cromwell's time was all too 
short to make a vast change. How short will the 
time be after this war, when the next great oppor- 
tunity comes ! Will it be gripped this time ? Or 
shall some Milton years hence write: 

" O shame to men ! devil with devil damned 
Firm concord holds, men only disagree 
Of creatures rational, though under hope 
Of heavenly grace ; and, God proclaiming peace, 
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife 



DAVID, ISAIAH, JESUS 365 

Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, 
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy; 
As if (which might induce us to accord) 
Man had not hellish foes enow besides 
That day and night for his destruction wait." 



CHAPTER XVI 

AFTERMATH 

"These are the things that ye shall do: speak ye every 
man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of 
■truth and peace in your gates:" 

— Zechariah. 

It Is difficult now to make the people of Britain 
and America understand we did not declare war 
against Germany because her methods of warfare 
are not conducted according to the Hague rules; 
neither did Britain declare war on Germany because 
Louvain, Malines, and Dinant have been destroyed, 
and the Belgian people have had almost every kind 
of atrocity inflicted upon them. It is, however, 
vitally necessary that the public mind should be 
brought back now to an appreciation of the true 
position of European affairs as they were before 
August 3rd, 19 14- — if the people are to take any 
effective part in peace negotiations. Statesmen may 
find it convenient to fill their minds with all that is 
now taking place on the battlefields, to the exclusion 
of what really happened before August, 19 14, and 
what the position of essential Interest to the people 
will be when the war is over. Governments will 
look after their own interests; but with people It Is 
different, for no Government will do anything really 
worth while for them unless they keep clearly In view 
all those factors which have caused so much suffer- 

366 



REAL REASONS AND ISSUES 367 

ing and death, and firmly decide to rid themselves 
of pernicious systems which foment wars. 

Let there be no mistake this time. In the past 
certain ofl&cials and writers strove during wars to 
make people forget the- issues which made wars; the 
reasons given to the public for entering on war were 
seldom the real reasons; usually the real reasons 
never reached the mind of the general public. 
Hence the ease with which Governments launch na- 
tions into wars. It is all very proper to express in- 
dignation at ruthless acts inflicted on defenceless 
persons and towns; but it would be most unwise to 
forget the issues which brought about the strife. 
Real sympatliy with the victims in all countries now 
suffering from the ravages of war must extend so far 
as to make a recurrence of these horrors improbable. 
It is only to be expected that men and women of re- 
finement should be deeply incensed at the destruction 
of Rheims Cathedral; but that the act should blot 
out of mind the events which brought the war about 
is a poor service to art and humanity. 

To those who cannot understand why certain peo- 
ple should be horrified at the burning of the Louvain 
library, the ruination of beautiful buildings, and not 
be just as deeply shocked at the loss or mutilation of 
a soldier, it must be pointed out that it is the custom 
of the world to regard the body and soul of a man 
as something inferior in value to a rare volume or a 
grand cathedral. There is nothing so cheap as 
human life. It is the popular notion that men are 
easily replaced; and so long as men permit certain 
sections of their fellows to think they are cheap, not 
worth the interest bestowed on a building or a book, 
the world will have little rest from war, and only 



368 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

very few men will ever have the chance of learning 
how to appreciate the architecture of their own coun- 
try, or why the art of Elzevir should be revered. 

The people must think clearly this time. They 
can very well conduct the business of war imposed by 
the Government, and at the same time keep in mind 
every circumstance, political, social, diplomatic, mili- 
tary, and naval, which forced us Into the conflict. 
Whether we suffer defeat on land or sea, whether we 
gain great victories, we all must decide resolutely 
not to let any event turn us aside from the great 
work of protecting future generations from the evil 
which present systems have wrought. The greatest 
triumph will be won in vain if we forget our duty to 
the children of the future. To every man who sac- 
rifices his life in this struggle, the people owe, not 
monuments in stone, but a certain escape for those 
who live after him from all the secret systems, arma- 
ment rings, and economic wrongs which compelled 
his sacrifice. 

War Is so awful, so terrible, that some men are 
driven to excuse It by saying It Is a biological neces- 
sity; they can account for its consequences in no other 
way. But no war kills so many men as there are 
children killed year after year by involuntary pov- 
erty. Poverty thrusts" all the travail of war into 
millions of homes at all times. Poverty Is with us 
so much, however, that we have become used to It. 
War, on the other hand, being an Intermittent effect, 
catches our attention. It takes possession of our 
thought and sways us with a force not compatible 
with reason. It assails the mind and will not let It 
dwell long on anything else. War Is arrogant. Im- 
perious, and vindictive : It will push all thoughts not 



PATRIOTISM 369 

of It aside, it will rule over the mind, it hits back 
if you try to drive it out. 

During a war it is no easy task to prevent your 
sympathy clouding your reason. The whole social 
system seems to be organized against any individual 
attempt to concentrate the attention dominantly upon 
the causes of the war. Governments, churches, 
theatres, the press, and local authorities, direct their 
efforts, in the main, warwards; the whole thought 
of society and commerce seems to be occupied with 
war; and all desire to question the reasons given 
by statesmen for participating in the war must be 
suppressed. It has been ruled already by certain 
" leaders of thought " that it is unwise, unpatriotic, 
and un-English, to suspect the motives of Govern- 
ments, or waver for a moment in swearing whole- 
hearted allegiance to the authorities : you must think 
only of the war. If you dare ask for the truth, 
you are helping the enemy; if you suggest an early 
peace, you are hindering the militarists who desire 
no peace until their enemy is utterly crushed. In- 
sidious, bewildering, and plausible, are the reasons 
given by statesmen and journalists for inflicting a 
humiliating defeat; without it, they tell us we must 
not hope for disarmament. No patriot is supposed 
to ask if disarmament is at all probable. No one 
must ask if a single statesman really believes such a 
blessing will follow if the enemy be annihilated. But 
is it believable? What does disarmament mean? 
Does it mean that all arsenals and depots will be 
scrapped, that all yards and ordnance works will be 
closed, that all ships of war will be dismantled, that 
all naval and military weapons, plant and ammuni- 
tion will be destroyed, and that all soldiers and sail- 



370 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

ors will be dismissed ? Impossible ! of course ! One 
has only to think of all the commercial and economic 
consequences of disarmament, to realize how utterly 
wicked it is for any one to lead people to believe they 
intend to bring any such change about. Besides, we 
have our Essens, we have our Krupps, we have our 
war-party, we have our Jingo press; and if only a 
reduction of expenditure on armaments is to take 
place, it must be Britain that must lead the way. 

An American writer says, " nothing less than total 
disarmament will satisfy the people." Has that 
writer asked himself these questions : " Will Russia 
disarm? Will France disarm? Again, what power 
will Britain, after she disarms, have of making Ger- 
many, after she is crushed, not follow the example 
of France in the 'seventies? How long after 1870 
was France content to remain quiet? There is this, 
too, to be considered: Are the men who conducted 
the negotiations before the war to be the makers of 
peace terms? Will the old heads serve for radically 
new ideas? After the war it is quite probable there 
will be greater Governmental reasons for building up 
massive armaments than ever before. One has only 
to think of the position in Central Europe if Ger- 
many be utterly crushed. Will she be satisfied to let 
Russia become the greatest Power in Europe? Will 
Britain, within ten years, be satisfied with Russia as 
the dominant Power? What military and naval 
strength will Britain require to insist on nearly 80,- 
000,000 of the Teutonic race in Europe remaining 
quiet? If in a comparatively few years France could 
rise again out of the dust of 1870, to be a Power 
great enough to seek alliances with Britain and Rus- 
sia, surely any one with a grain of sense must realize 



SOME PRACTICAL PROPOSALS 371 

what Germany will do in a far shorter space of time. 
It is not meet that statesmen should be expected to 
perform miracles of that nature. Let us then have 
done with the silly notion that a crushing defeat of 
Germany will mean disarmament. : 

It will, however, be possible to reduce to somd 
extent expenditure on our army and navy if we insist 
on radical changes taking place in our Foreign Office 
system. In the first place, the people must make the 
Government amenable in every particular to Parlia- 
ment. Legislation must be enacted that all terri- 
torial acquisition, treaties, alliances, ententes, un- 
derstandings, all negotiations with foreign Powers, 
shall be submitted to the House for ratification.- 
There must be no more secrecy, no more Foreigil 
Office strategy, no more " Commander of the 
Forces," and no more Cabinet rule. Parliament, 
and Parliament only, must be responsible, primarily 
and finally, for all affairs affecting the lives of the 
people. 

Then In connection with the navy and army, all 
orders for all material must in detail be submitted by 
the experts to a Parliamentary Committee made up 
from ail sections of thought in the House ; and esti- 
mates must be tendered, as was done recently in 
America, so that there will be competition strong 
enough to break all rings. It is also necessary to 
make the Minister for War and the First Lord of the 
Admiralty the servants of Parliament, and deliver 
them out of the hands of the experts. Democratiza- 
tion of all the services must follow these changes. 

Some reduction in armaments might then be made ; 
but let it not be imagined that these changes will be 
sufficient to preclude the probability of war. They 



372 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

will only give the people a chance to know what 
is taking place, and, perhaps, let them have more 
time to think before they engage in war. No more 
can truthfully be said in their favour. 

Another important change might be made with ad- 
vantage to the people. There should be a fixed 
period for a Parliament, so that all members may 
vote fearlessly at all times. It is a debasing system 
which influences a member to vote for legislation or 
supply which he dislikes, solely to keep a Government 
in office to carry measures he does like. There is 
not proper freedom for members who, in the main, 
support the Government; and if the people are to be 
truly represented, if the opinion of the House is to 
be accurately expressed, members must be free to 
vote as they conscientiously desire, without fear of 
losing some measure on which they have set their 
hearts. 

But the problems of armaments and war are not to 
be solved by merely making changes such as are 
suggested above. These problems lie deep, away 
down at the base of the social system; and they must 
be considered in relation to the composition of 
armies and navies in times of peace. Big battalions 
and great crews mean that soldiers and sailors have 
no better way of facing the struggle for existence. 
Grant all the exceptions, admit all the attractions, 
I concede all that military and naval writers say about 
courage and patriotism; still, the economic character 
of the problem cannot be explained away. And it 
does not matter whether the name of the system 
be voluntary or compulsory, compulsion is the driv- 
ing force which gives Governments armies and 
navies; without it in times of peace comparatively 



GOOD TIMES AND BAD 373 

few men would enlist. It is compulsion of a vital 
kind that lies at the back of the problem; with the 
rank and file indeed, choice scarcely ever enters in. 
Choice denotes freedom to decide, liberty of action, 
an alternative. As was said by a soldier in the 
House of Commons, only a little while ago, " Re- 
cruiting is good when trade is bad." Yes, it is 
hunger, lack of a home, of decent clothes, of means 
of keeping clean, which are the chief reasons for men 
joining the ranks. Who has watched recruiting sta- 
tions at different seasons, in times of prosperity, and 
in times of depression, and not seen how powerful are 
the needs of men in affecting the work of recruiting 
sergeants? When trade is booming, only a weedy, 
wizened lot of wretched youths are, as a rule, to be 
seen reading the posters, or chatting with the men 
with the " ribbons and the cane." But when depres- 
sion sets in, quite another type of man is seen about 
the stations; fellows out of work, hungry, homeless 
labourers, sometimes artizans seeking the army or 
navy as a refuge, not with zeal, but with reluctance. 
To those who imagine there are numbers of ad- 
venturous spirits who prefer life in armies and navies 
to the monotony of a factory or a farm, it should be 
pointed out that generations of workers under un- 
favourable conditions must have had a great effect 
on many youths who see no better prospect in life 
than their forebears had ; and it is not to be wondered 
they seek relief in other directions. But if it were 
possible to make young men understand that the land 
of their birth was in fact their heritage, that the 
gifts of God were theirs to enjoy equally with their 
fellows, they would prefer a life of production and 
usefulness rather than the discipline of the barracks 



374 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

, and the tyranny of the drum. Uncertainty of work, 
low real wage, high prices and rent, all tend to cloud 
the prospect for young men. Even in seaports, wise 

\^ old men tell the economic tale of how the navy is 
easily recruited. There is no alternative, they say; 
sharp young chaps loolc for something more exciting 
than a shop or a mill or a farm, with little or no 
chance to rise. 

It is opportunity that is required for the mass of 
men — equal opportunity for all, indeed — if the 
problems of armaments and war are to be solved. 
There is no other way ! Arbitration will not prevent 
the nations arming, and Mr. Bryan's notable expedi- 
ent, of a year's consideration will in no way alter the 
economic system, nor limit the growth of armies and 
navies. It is justice that is wanted, if men are to live 
in peace. ■'' 

Citizens who desire peace can indulge in no 
greater folly than that which is summed up in the 

1 1 phrase, "the best way to preserve peace is to pre- 
I pare for war." That rotten expedient has been 

\ \ shattered completely. The position of the nations 
warring in Europe proves conclusively that no 
amount of " preparedness " can stem the rush of 
militarists once they get out of hand. Nothing 
could stop Russia and France, who over a period of 
years spent over £100,000,000 more on their armies 
than the central Empires. The " armed peace " of 
Europe, during the thirty-seven years before the war 
began, cost her peoples £22,200,000,000; £22,200,- 
000,000 for "insurance"; that is, £600,000,000 a 
year. The two countries whose estimates in the year 
19 14 were largest for military and naval " prepared- 
ness " were the very countries to be invaded and 



" VICISTI, GALILiEE I " 375 

great areas of their territory laid waste. These 
countries, France and Russia, estimated, in round fig- 
ures, for an expenditure of at least £165,000,000 on 
army and navy, while Germany and Austria estimated 
for £122,000,000 for both services. Add Britain's 
estimates to those of France and Russia and let those 
who still believe in " preparedness " understand that, 
round figures, the Triple Entente estimated in 19 14 
to spend the enormous sum of £123,000,000 more on 
" preparedness " than Germany and Austria. (Italy 
was not counted in the Triple Alliance by Bernhardi, 
when he wrote his book, Germany and the Next 
War.) 

The pacifist has triumphed: armaments create 
wars, and militarism is at all times inimical to the 
real interests of the people. This war seems to be 
a great subconscious protest against territorial ag- 
grandizement, bureaucratic tyranny, governments^ 
privilege, imperial dogmatism, and gross corn- 
mercialism. It is, in a vague strange way, a 
challenge against a discredited Christianity. While 
society can build up armaments, pauperize the 
poor, " bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne 
and lay them on men's shoulders," " shut up the 
kingdom of heaven against men," " devour widows' 
houses," and " strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," 
Christianity has not done its work. The record is ex- 
tant: territorial aggrandisement violates the first law 
of the Creator, by Caesar taking what belongs to 
God; bureaucratic tyranny forces the people to sup- 
port Governments In maintaining that system; gov- 
ernmental privilege is the power which keeps people 
in subjection through iniquitous taxation and other 
restrictive laws ; i mperial dogmatism asserts the 



376 HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

colossal lie, that the State is the people; and com- 
mercialism keeps on as an industrial system, thriving 
on cruel land laws which force labour to compete 
for jobs and thus lower wages to subsistence-level; 
making life for the toilers a ceaseless grind in murk 
and stench, stunting the life of the young, filling the 
aged with sorrow, and driving our sisters into the 
sweat-shops and the brothels of our towns. 

This war, begun by diplomatists and militarists, 
has made the^p^eopTes of Europe conscious of all 
tfiese dreadful evils; In no other way can the seem- 
ing unanimity of all the forces fighting in all the 
stricken countries be explained. Each people, now 
the war is in progress, is actuated subconsciously by 
the notion that the end of the war will bring the 
freedom that will raise them up out of the sloughs 
of the past. The vision of the men in the trenches 
Is one of peace and disarmament; but whether the 
close of the strife will open an era of an unarmed 
enduring peace Is a question which will depend en- 
tirely on the people themselves. Governments have 
rnade the war; only the peoples can make .an un- 
armed peace. 



THE END 



APPENDIX 

An article appeared in The Labour Leader in 
February, 19 15, which contained the following 
article and notes taken from the Pall Mall Gazette 
of February 4th and 5th, 1887. At that time Mr. 
W. T. Stead was the editor of the paper. 

England and Belgium. 

Are we bound to intervene ? 
There is no guarantee. 

The Standard this morning gives special promi- 
nence to a letter signed " Diplomaticus " on the neu- 
trality of Belgium. It also devotes its first leading 
article to the subject. The gist of these utterances 
may be summed up in two propositions : ( i ) Eng- 
land is under a treaty of obligation to defend the 
neutrality of Belgium; (2) But circumstances have 
altered since the contraction of the said obligation, 
and as against Germany, at any rate, England must 
pocket its pledges, and allow France to be invaded 
through Belgium without protesting or interfering. 

Considerable importance is likely to be attributed 
to these conclusions abroad owing to its being under- 
stood that The Standard is at present the Govern- 
mental Salisburian organ. Each of the propositions 
laid down by our contemporary is, it will be seen, 
likely to be taken hold of. Germany might read the 

Z77 



378 Appendix 

second as an invitation to invade France through 
Belgium; France might read the first as an admission 
of our obligation to prevent, or rather to punish, 
such an infringement of neutral territory, if we 
dared. 

It becomes important, therefore, to point out that 
The Standard's argument rests on a false assumption. 
We do not for the present argue whether in the con- 
tingencies contemplated it would be England's inter- 
est to intervene by declaring war against whichever 
belligerent might violate the neutrality of Belgium; 
we confine ourselves to the preliminary statement es- 
sential for clearing up the case — that it is not Eng- 
land's obligation to do so. 

The origin of the mistaken views prevailing on the 
question is undoubtedly a confusion between the Spe- 
cial Treaty of 1831 and 1839 which it temporarily 
superseded. By the treaty of 1870 the obligation of 
England was, of course, clear and specific. Here is 
the pledge which was given in the identical treaties 
concluded mutatis mutandis with both France and 
Prussia : 

" Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland declares that if during the said 
hostilities the armies of France (or Prussia) should violate 
the neutrality of Belgium, she will be prepared to co-operate 
with his Prussian Majesty (or the Emperor of the French) 
for the defence of the same in such a manner as may be 
mutually agreed upon, employing for that purpose her naval 
and military forces to ensure its observance." 

There could be no doubt about that pledge; but 
then it expired twelve months after the conclusion of 
peace. At the expiration of that period, so the 
treaty continued: 



Appendix 379 

" The independence and neutrality of Belgium will, so 
far as the High Contracting Parties are respectively con- 
cerned, continue to rest as heretofore on the first article of 
the Quintuple Treaty of the 19th of April, 1839." 

Now, what some people do is to read this treaty of 
1839 by the light of the more specific treaty of 1870, 
and to deduce from the former the same obligation 
on the part of England to intervene against any in- 
fringement of Belgium's neutrality as was contained 
In the 1870 treaty. 

This, however, is a completely untenable proceed- 
ing. The treaty of 1 839 must stand on its own legs, 
and these, it will be seen, are by no means very 
strong. The following are the terms of its second 
article : 

" His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary 
and Bohemia, His Majesty the King of the French, Her 
Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland, His Majesty the King of Prussia, and His 
Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, declare that the 
articles hereby annexed to the treaty concluded this day be- 
tween His Majesty the King of the Belgians and His Maj- 
esty the King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxem- 
bourg, are considered as having the same force and value as 
if they were textually inserted in the present act, and that 
they are thus placed under the guarantee of their Majesties." 

Here, then, we are sent off from the treaty between 
the Great Powers to the treaty between Belgium and 
the Netherlands. The seventh article of this treaty 
(which is identical with the same article of the 1831 
treaty) runs: 

" Belgium will form, within the limits indicated in i, 2 
and 4, an independent and perpetually neutral State. She 
will be bound to observe this same neutrality toward all 
other States." 



380 Appendix 

In this treaty it will be seen there is nothing about 
any guarantee; all that can be elicited from it, and 
from the one cited as referring to it, is this, that this 
clause is placed under the guarantee of " their said 
Majesties," that is, England, Austria, France, Ger- 
many and Russia. 

But that is not all. This constructive guarantee 
must be considered in relation to the party to whom 
It was given — namely to the Netherlands. For the 
treaty of 1839 was one between the five Powers on 
the one hand and the Netherlands on the other; and 
what the five Powers did was to guarantee to the 
Netherlands the treaty contracted between It and 
Belgium, one clause of which treaty said that Bel- 
gium should form, " an independent and perpetually 
neutral State " and should " be bound to observe such 
neutrality toward all other States." 

In the treaty of 1 83 1 , it is true, there was a further 
article guaranteeing the execution of all preceding 
articles (including, therefore, the one just cited in 
similar terms from the 1839 treaty) to the King of 
the Belgians, but In the 1839 treaty, on which the 
independence of Belgium is now said to rest, Lord 
Palmerston omitted any such guarantee. 

There is, therefore, no English guarantee to Bel- 
gium. It is possible, perhaps, to " construct " such 
a guarantee; but the case may be summed up as fol- 
lows: (i) England is under no guarantee what- 
ever except such as Is common to Austria, France, 
Russia, and Germany; (2) that guarantee Is not 
specifically of the neutrality of Belgium at all; and 
(3) Is given not to Belgium but to the Netherlands. 



Appendix 381 



OCCASIONAL NOTES 

The attempt of the Morning Post to prove that 
this country is under a guarantee to Belgium to de- 
fend its neutrality is highly unsuccessful. " The 
treaty of the 1 5th of November, 1 83 1 ," it says, " was 
cancelled by treaties of the 19th of April, 1839, but 
the provisions regarding the neutrality of Belgium 
remained intact." This, as we pointed out yester- 
day, is not the case. The treaty of 1831 was with 
Belgium, and the execution of its articles (including 
one which provided for the neutrality of Belgium) 
was guaranteed to the King of the Belgians. But in 
the treaty 01 1839, though the article asserting the 
neutrality of Belgium remains, the guarantee disap- 
pears. It is the more surprising that the Morning 
Post should be at such pains to prove that there is 
still a guarantee, since the only action it would in any 
case recommend being taken on it is a platonic pro- 
test. To construe a non-existent guarantee in order 
to have the privilege of uttering an unavailing pro- 
test is surely the very superfluity of futility. 

But the line taken by the Morning Post is perhaps 
not quite so absurd as that which The Standard yes- 
terday suggested, and a correspondent repeats this 
morning. We are to construct the guarantee and are 
then to declare our obligation to defend the neutral- 
ity of Belgium against all comers. But when any 
particular comer infringes that neutrality we are to 
grant him a special dispensation. The Standard 
and its correspondent speak only of giving this dis- 
pensation to Germany; what is to be allowed to Ger- 
many could not be denied to France. Our defence 
of the neutrality of Belgium would thus be never 
to-day but always every other day; it would be as- 



382 Appendix 

serted against any one in general, but withdrawn 
against any one In particular. With such absurdi- 
ties staring them in the face, it is surprising that our 
contemporaries do not take the trouble to ascertain 
that the guarantee which they are so Ingeniously but 
unheroically whittling down does not in fact exist 
at all. 



The Spectator, February 5, 1887. .. . The 
general idea is that England will be kept out of this 
war. . . . That she will try to do so we do not 
doubt, but there is the Belgian difficulty ahead. Our 
guarantee for her is not a solitary one, and would 
not bind us to fight alone : but there are general inter- 
ests to be considered. The probability Is that we 
shall insist on her not becoming a theatre of war but 
shall not bar — as indeed we cannot bar — the trav- 
ersing of her soil. 



HOW DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR 

BY FRANCIS NEILSON 
COMMENTS ON THE FIRST EDITION 

NEW YORK times: 

" The volume is written with much facility of expression and a 
large fund of materials. In diplomatic matters it attacks the faults 
of the ruling class in Great Britain in much the same way as ' I 
Accuse ! ' attacked those of the corresponding class in Germany." 

THE BOSTON HERALD: 

" The real emphasis of the book is on the direful effects of war on 
the common people — on the men who go forth from their Drum- 
drudge villages to slay and be slain at command, and on the kind of 
society that survives after every war to see its civilization thrust 
back for a century and the solution of its urgent economic problems 
thrust far forward into the future." 

THE DIAL (Chicago) : 

" A book which many of its readers will feel has appeared at the 
moment when it was most required. Amidst the high pressure of 
emotionalism in which sane judgments are at a premium, and strong 
opinions on one side or another are regarded as inevitable, it is well 
to be reminded that quarrels between nations, as between individuals, 
are usually due to ' faults on both sides.' " 

THE nation: 

" He writes with a bitter pen but has a large historical sweep and 
much knowledge. ... As to one of the chief positions of the volume, 
no American will have any quarrel with the writer of this book. It 
is that no treaties, forms of international alliance, or agreements 
with other nations ought to be entered into until they have been sub- 
mitted to the representatives of the people in Parliament." 

REVIEW OF reviews: 

"It is a terrific indictment of the diplomatic game as played by 
all the great European governments. It shows how dangerous is the 
survival of a diplomacy that is not only removed from contact with 
public opinion, but is even beyond the knowledge and reach of the 
people's representatives in Parliament." 

THE PUBLIC (Chicago) : 

" It is a stirring story of the rotten result of a sinister, lying, 
bluffing diplomacy that despoiled the Continent. And the final chap- 
ter, that makes a tremendous appeal for frankness and true democ- 
racy, is a notable one." 

PUBLISHED BY; B. W. HUEBSCH, NEW YORK 



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